Derek Sivers podcast

Latest Episodes:

Singing the counter-melody Apr 21, 2016

Show notes

My advice and opinions may sound strange on their own.

Do you know what musical counterpoint is? Underneath the main melody, you have a counter-melody that goes against it, and together they make harmony. This is different from harmonizing, where someone sings along with the melody at an interval. The counter-melody is a separate melody that could stand on its own, but is mainly there to complement the main melody.

Well, if my advice and opinions sound strange, it’s because I’m just the counter-melody.

I know I’m not the only voice you hear. There’s a common message we all hear these days. Let’s call that the melody.

I may love that melody, too, but I don’t want to just duplicate it. So I try to think of a good counter-melody.

I do it to compensate for something I think is missing in the common message. My public writing is a counterpoint meant to complement the popular point.

Of course I don’t think the stuff I say is the only way to go. I’m just the counter-melody.

Really I hope you listen to the combination. Eventually you’ll find yourself singing along with the melody you like best, or making up your own.

Don’t start a business until people are asking you to Apr 13, 2016

Show notes

When you bake a cake, you need to do first things first. You need to get the ingredients before you turn on the oven. You need to bake it before you frost it and slice it.

I meet a lot of people who want to start a business. Some don’t have an idea yet. I don’t understand this. It’s like wanting to wear a bandage when you don’t have a wound.

Most have an idea but no customers. For them I always say, “Don’t start a business until people are asking you to.”

This is not meant to be discouraging. It just means you need to get the ingredients before you turn on the oven.

First you find real people whose problem you can solve. You listen deeply to find their dream scenario. You make sure they’re happy to pay you enough.

Don’t announce anything. Don’t choose a name. Don’t make a website or an app. Don’t build a system. You need to be free to completely change or ditch your idea.

Then you get your first paying customer. Provide a one-on-one personal service. Then you get another paying customer. Prove a real demand.

Then, as late as possible, you officially start your business.

Happy, Smart, and Useful Mar 03, 2016

Show notes

There are three things to consider when making life-size decisions:

What makes you happy
What’s smart — meaning long-term good for you
What’s useful to others

We have a tendency to forget one of these. For example:

Smart and useful (but not happy)

This is the stereotype of the strict parent who says, “You will go to the best school, get perfect grades, get a degree in law or medicine, and make lots of money. What you want does not matter. This is what’s best for you and your family.”

Smart and useful isn’t bad. It’s rational, like a machine. But happiness is the oil. Without it, the friction kills the engine.

Happy and smart (but not useful)

This is the stereotype of the “lifestyle design” or self-help addict: always learning, always improving, and obsessively focused on how to be happy and create the perfect life.

They look for “passive income” instead of focusing on doing something that’s really valuable to others.

Happy and smart isn’t bad. The self-focus feels great at first. But you can’t actually pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Ultimately you must be lifted by those around you.

Happy and useful (but not smart)

This is the stereotype of charity volunteers. After getting expensive university degrees, they spend years flying to exotic impoverished places to dig wells and thatch roofs.

But if a graduate’s time could be worth $200 per hour, yet they’re doing work that locals could do better for $10 per hour (and without airfare and hotels), then they’re actually doing a disservice to others. (For more thoughts on this, find two articles online: “Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others” and “The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems.”)

In this same category are people who stay at the same jobs for life without improvement, and the musicians who always perform at the local venues but never make good recordings.

Happy and useful isn’t bad. These people are doing good for the world, so it’s hard to find fault. They have great intentions but lame strategies — wasted effort and unused potential.

Just happy (not smart or useful)

This is the parable of the Mexican fisherman.

Some say, “Just be happy. That’s all that matters.” It sounds so simple, it must be profoundly true, right?

But, as in Aesop’s fable of “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” you’ll be full of regret if you think of nothing but today and don’t prepare for tough times.

And you’ll be very unrewarded if you serve only yourself, not others.

So…?

When life or a plan feels ultimately unsatisfying, I find it’s because I’ve forgotten to find the intersection of all three:

What makes me happy
What’s smart
What’s useful to others

Assume men and women are the same Feb 28, 2016

Show notes

Men say, “Women can never make up their minds.”

But actually both men and women are equally indecisive.

Women say, “Men think one thing but say another.”

But actually both men and women are equally indirect.

We think the differences between our group and another group are greater than they are.

But the differences among men, and the differences among women, are much bigger than the differences between men and women.

So instead, to compensate for your tendency to exaggerate those differences, just assume that men and women are the same.

They’re not the same, but if you follow this rule, your thinking will be closer to correct than not.

Beware of advice Feb 25, 2016

Show notes

Imagine that you hand someone your camera, and ask him to take a photo of you. He does, but when you look at the photo later, you notice that he took a photo of himself by mistake.

Imagine you’ve got a big question like, “Should I quit my job and start my own company?” You go ask the advice of some successful people you respect. Because they can’t know everything about you and your unique situation, they’ll give advice that’s really just a reflection of their own current situation.

So let’s look at some ways that advice is biased.

Lottery numbers: When successful people give advice, I usually hear it like this: “Here are the lottery numbers I played: 14 29 71 33 8. They worked for me!” Success is based on so many factors. Some are luck. Some are not. It’s hard to know which are which. So which do you learn from?

Underdog opinion in their context: Someone giving advice doesn’t want to say what’s been said too much already. But he’s basing that on his surroundings, not yours. So if everyone around him is quitting their jobs, his advice to you will be to keep your job. That advice has nothing to do with what’s best for you — it’s just the opinion that seems under-represented in his environment that day.

Creative sparks: You ask, “What should I do, option A or B?” He replies, “Zebra!” He’s treating the situation as an invitation to brainstorm, giving a crazy suggestion just to open up more options. Like an Oscar Wilde quip, it was meant to be mostly entertaining, maybe useful, and probably not correct.

The problem is taking any one person’s advice too seriously. Ideally, asking advice should be like echolocation. Bounce ideas off of all of your surroundings, and listen to all the echoes to get the whole picture.

Ultimately, only you know what to do, based on all the feedback you’ve received and all your personal nuances that no one else knows.

**Overcompensate to compensate** Feb 23, 2016
Show notes

You have something you want to change: a thought process or habit you want to fix.
Let’s use the metaphor of a bunch of bricks on a seesaw. Right now all the bricks are stacked on one side. This is the way you have been.

To make a change, **most people don’t do enough.**
If you do something small and sensible, it’s like moving one brick to the other side. You’re still unbalanced.

You think you made the change, but it’s not accounting for:
a lifetime of doing it the other way,
the environment that made you that way, and
the pressure from friends to stay that way.
**To make a change, you have to be extreme.** Go all the way the other way. **It will feel like overcompensating**, but you have to stack a huge pile of bricks on the other side.

This new you sounds extreme and exciting. You’ll think you’re going to be completely changed.
But actually the old stuff is still there. So really this is what you needed to do to balance — to compensate for that cultural baggage, self-identity, habit, and history.

Once you’re balanced, the new perspective will sink in and become your new normal.

How to take a compliment Feb 18, 2016

Show notes

You would think this would be a basic life skill, but it seems almost nobody knows it, so please spread the word.

When someone gives you a compliment, what should you do?

Do you say, “What? No! Not at all. That’s ridiculous.” Do you give details of why you disagree?

That’s what most people do. They refuse it. They deny it.

But think of how inconsiderate that is.

It takes courage to give you a compliment. It’s a little vulnerable for someone to admit they like something about you, and then to go up to you and tell you so. So when they do, is that nice of you to argue with them about it? How do you think that makes them feel in that moment?

So, when someone gives you a compliment, what should you do?

Just say, “Thank you.”

Nothing more.

It feels strange, but it’s the right thing to do.

It doesn’t mean you agree. You’re just thanking them for their vulnerable courage in that moment, for taking the trouble to tell you something nice.

Then sincerely return their interest. Ask their name, or something more about them.

This advice came from Livingston Taylor, and was originally aimed at musicians, since they often get compliments after a gig, and always actively disagree with these compliments. But everyone can use this simple life skill.

Switch strategies Jan 27, 2016

Show notes

Life is like any journey. You need to change directions a few times to get where you want to go.

Early in your career, the best strategy is to say yes to everything. The more things you try, and the more people you meet, the better. Each one might lead to your lucky break.

Then when something is extra-rewarding, it’s time to switch strategies. Focus all of your energy on this one thing. Don’t be leisurely. Strike while it’s hot. Be a freak. Give it everything you’ve got.

If by chance it was a dead-end road, then switch your strategy back to trying everything.

Eventually your focus on something will pay off. Because you’re successful, you’ll be overwhelmed with opportunities and offers. You’ll want to do them all. But this is when you need to switch strategies again. This is when you learn to say “hell yeah or no” to avoid drowning.

Now you admit you’ve arrived at your first destination. This is where you stop following old directions, and decide where you’re going next. The new plan means you need to switch strategies again.

Relax for the same result Oct 02, 2015

Show notes

A few years ago, I lived in Santa Monica, California, right on the beach.

There’s a great bike path that goes along the ocean for seven and a half miles. So, fifteen miles round trip. On weekday afternoons, it’s almost empty. It’s perfect for going full speed.

So a few times a week, I’d get on my bike and go as fast as I could for the fifteen-mile loop. I mean really full-on, 100 percent, head-down, red-faced sprinting.

I’d finish exhausted and look at the time: forty-three minutes. Every time. Maybe a minute more on a really windy day, but basically always forty-three minutes.

After a few months, I noticed I was getting less enthusiastic about this bike ride. I think I had mentally linked it with being completely exhausted.

So one day I decided I would do the same ride, but just chill. Take it easy, nice and slow. OK, not super slow, but dialing it back to about 50 percent of my usual effort.

And ahhh… what a nice ride. I was relaxed and smiling and looking around. I was barely giving it any effort.

I saw two dolphins in the water. A pelican flew right over me in Marina del Ray. When I looked up to say “wow!” he shit in my mouth. I can still remember that taste of digested shellfish. I had to laugh at the novelty of it.

I’m usually so damn driven, always doing everything as intensely as I can. It was so nice to take it easy for once. I felt I could do this forever, without any exhaustion.

When I finished, I looked at the time: forty-five minutes.

Wait — what?!? How could that be? Yep. I double-checked: forty-five minutes, as compared to my usual forty-three.

So apparently all of that exhausting, red-faced, full-on push-push-push I had been doing had given me only a 4 percent boost. I could just take it easy and get 96 percent of the results.

And what a difference in experience! To go the same distance, in about the same time, but one way leaves me exhausted, and the other way, rejuvenated.

I think of this often. When I notice that I’m all stressed out about something or driving myself to exhaustion, I remember that bike ride and try dialing back my effort by 50 percent. It’s been amazing how often everything gets done just as well and just as fast, with what feels like half the effort.

Which then makes me realize that half of my effort wasn’t effort at all, but just unnecessary stress that made me feel like I was doing my best.