Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. So this is a very, very short, small book, which I read a few years ago. And Derek Sivers is one of my favorite people, favorite thinkers in the world. And the advice that he shares has resonated with me so much over the years.
And so in this video, I want to share five excerpts, five lessons from this book that I'm continuing to revisit again and again. And I hope you enjoy. What if you didn't need money or attention?
You know that feeling you have after a big meal, when you're so full that you don't want anything more. Ever wonder what that would feel like in other parts of your life? We do so many things for the attention, to feel important or praised.
But what if you had so much attention and so much praise that you couldn't possibly want anymore? What would you do then? What would you stop doing?
We do so many things for the money, whether we need it or not. But what if you had so much money that you couldn't possibly want anymore? What would you do then? What would you stop doing? And then if you stopped doing all those things you're doing just for the money or the attention, what would be left?
Who would you be if you didn't do these things? If you were completely satisfied, then what? After an understandable period of relaxing, what would you pursue? Don't say sit around and do nothing because that's still just relaxing. I mean, after that, when you're ready to be useful to others again, what would you do then?
If you didn't need to do anything, the money and didn't need the attention. Yeah this question of what we want to do with our time, what we want to do with our lives, is one of the central questions that we're all trying to answer mostly when we're when we get into our 20s, often when we graduate, and we're like, what do I do now? It's a really tricky one.
And one of the best things I've found for this is to just sort of do a lot of exploration, try out a bunch of different things and see what vibes. But also journaling prompts like this, questions like this that encourage us to get away from like the default things of status or success or desire for money or desire for security, all that kind of stuff. A question like, what would you actually do if you didn't care about the money and you didn't care about the attention? Next up we have, if you're not feeling hell yeah, then say no. Most of us have lives filled with mediocrity.
We say yes to things that we felt half-hearted about. So we're too busy to react when opportunities come our way. We miss out on the great because we're busy with the mediocre.
The solution is to say yes to less. If you're not feeling hell yeah that would be awesome about something, say no. It's an easier decision.
Say no to almost everything. This starts to free your time and your mind. Then when you find something you're actually excited about you'll have the space in your life to give it your all.
it your full attention. You'll be able to take massive action in a way that most people can't because you cleared away your clutter in advance. Saying no makes your yes more powerful. Though it's good to say yes when you're starting out, wanting any opportunity or needing variety, it's bad to say yes when you're overwhelmed, overcommitted or need to focus. Refuse almost everything, do almost nothing, but the things you do, do them all the way.
Man, this is good. This is a lesson I keep on needing to relearn and relearn and relearn. and relearn and relearn.
And every entrepreneur that I look up to also worries, also really, really, really struggles with this lesson. Where when you're just starting out, you kind of wanna say yes to everything because you're getting all these opportunities and you're like, you wanna try different things, you wanna take advantage of all the things. But then at a certain point, you kinda know what you need to do, you know what the things that you wanna focus on actually are. And any deviation or distraction from those things just scratches you in a bunch of different directions and you end up not really making any meaningful progress. But that requires the ability to say no to stuff.
What was it? There was a famous writer, I can't remember who it was, who said that one of the sad things about, one of the unfortunate side effects of being a successful writer is that you start getting all this fan mail. And if you were to respond to the fan mail, you would never have any time to do the writing.
And one thing a lot of writers get into trouble with is that they're in spending too much time interacting with the fans because they view that as a good thing and they really want to do it, they then lose the focus from their work. There's a phrase in business which is that sevens kill businesses. This is like seven out of tens. seven out of 10 people, seven out of 10 projects, things that you said yes to because it was like a seven out of 10 exciting.
If it's only a seven out of 10 exciting, it's not worth doing. And actually those seven out of 10s, like it's easy to say no to the things that are three out of 10 or two out of 10 or one out of 10. It's easy to say no to the stuff that you just really don't wanna do. But it's a lot harder to say no to the stuff where it's like, oh, you know, that thing's pretty good. But I mean, maybe it's a seven out of 10, but I probably should do it anyway because I'm really lucky to be in this position and I should take it on and it'll be good for my CV and it'll help me with this and this.
this and that. And then before you know it, your calendar and your to-do list are absolutely rammed and you're feeling overwhelmed because you just have too much stuff going on. And then the stuff that actually moves the needle, because those seven out of 10 things never really move the needle. The stuff that actually moves the needle falls by the wayside. Oh, and by the way, if you happen to be watching this before the 20th of September, 2024, then you might like to join my completely free quarterly alignment workshop.
This is a totally free online workshop I host on Zoom about every three months. And the idea is that we reflect on your last three months, we align to your life vision, and we set your goals for the final quarter of the year. I've been... been hosting these Every few months or year and there's always thousands of people on the call and they find them super helpful and it's completely free. So if you want to sign up and join me facilitating a zoom session, then you can check out the link in the video description.
Oh, I love this one. Relax for the same result. A few years ago, I lived in Santa Monica, California. California, right on the beach.
There's a great bike path that goes along the ocean for seven and a half miles. 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 15 mile loop. I mean really full on.
100%. head down, red-faced sprinting. I'd finished exhausted and look at the time.
43 minutes. Every time. After a few months, I noticed I was getting less enthusiastic about this bike ride. I think I'd 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. And ah, 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 Rey. When I looked up to say, wow, he's shitting.
in my mouth. 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. 45 minutes. Wait what?
How could that be? Yep, I double checked. 45 minutes as compared to my usual 43. So apparently all of that exhausting, red faced, full on, push push push I had been doing had given me only a 4% boost. I could just take it easy, and get nothing. 96% 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. When I noticed 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%. 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.
my best. Man, love that, so good. 43 versus 45 minutes.
I first, I remember, I first came across Derek Siver's stuff in like 2016 when I listened to an episode of the Tim Ferriss Show and then binged everything he'd written and this was one of the things that stuck out to me so much, what was that, eight years ago? Sometimes just putting in a little bit less effort, just taking it a little bit easier, taking it a little bit less seriously, ascribing a little bit less importance to it, it's just the thing to do. I talk about this in the first chapter of Feel Good Productivity, which is which is about play. Play is unlocked when we lower the stakes, when we take things a little bit less seriously, when we approach it with a little bit more lightness and ease.
Because a lot of the resistance and the push and the discipline and the drive that we put into stuff, a lot of that doesn't actually help us move any faster or make our output more efficient. It just makes us feel bad. And if we can find a way to achieve effectively the same thing with a little bit less effort, trying a little bit less, trying a little bit less hard, and kind of more like, I don't know, going with the flow of the water rather than trying to push up against the waves, got that kind of thing.
Yeah, 43 minutes versus 45 minutes. Oh, good stuff. Procrastination hack, change and to or.
My unwritten condition for when to exercise was this. When it's a nice day and I finished my work and I haven't just eaten and I'm feeling energetic. But of course that rarely happens, so I wasn't exercising enough. My coach suggested I change and to or.
When it's a nice day or I finished my work or I haven't. just eaten or I'm feeling energetic. Now I exercise quite often.
Do you have a list of conditions you need to have met before you do something? Try changing and to or. I vibe with this not because it's a hack for procrastination. I vibe with this because it's a great hack for being more satisfied with life.
I came across this in a Tony Robbins event actually. There was a story that he told. There's a little girl and she goes to her dad's office and the girl says to the dad, daddy, why is everything always in a muddle? And then the daddy's like, what do you mean, honey? What do you mean everything's all in a muddle?
And she says, like your desk, daddy, have a look at your desk. Your desk is a muddle. And so the dad's like, huh.
So help me sort it out. Like, what would it look like if it wasn't a muddle? And so the girl says, okay, well, this should go here and this should go here and this should go here and the computer should go here and the thing should go here. And then after sort of meticulously organizing his desk, she says, ah, see, it's not a muddle anymore. And then he takes a mug of pens or whatever and moves it there.
And she's like, no, no, no, it's in a muddle. And she puts it back. Then he takes the camera.
or whatever it is. And he puts it there. And she says, no, no, no, it's in a muddle again.
And puts the camera back. Then he takes the coffee cup, the used coffee cup, and he puts it there. And she's like, no, no, no, it's in a muddle.
And she puts it back. And so the dad says, oh, that's very interesting. There are all sorts of different ways for the desk to be in a muddle, but only one way for the desk to be acceptable, for the desk to be good. Back in the day, I used to have a set of rules for myself, like unwritten rules, rules that I hadn't really acknowledged for when I was allowed to feel satisfied. When I've- attended all my lectures and I had a good night's sleep and I did some socializing and I finished one of my essays way ahead of time and because I had this list of conditions this list of rules that had and in between them I was almost never satisfied at the end end of the day.
I always felt like I could have been more productive. I felt like I hadn't done enough. One thing that Derek suggests in this thing, one thing that Tony Robbins recommends, is when it comes to the rules that you have for feeling good, change and to or. So it's a good day when I've gone to all my lectures or I've had a good night. night's sleep or I've socialized with someone or I've made some progress on my essay and changing and to or in one simple mindset shift completely transforms our experience of life.
It's just about changing the set of rules that we have for ourselves. If there are 100 different ways for things to be in a muddle and only one way for things to be perfect, if there's only one way for you to have a good day, but 100 different ways for the day to be bad, you're probably going to have a lot of bad days. But if you change the rules, if you change the set of rules so that it was easier for you to have a good day, easier for you to be satisfied.
with what you've done, then you still do the same stuff. It's just that you choose to feel more satisfied at the end of the day with what you've done. All right, final thing from the book is, obvious to you, amazing to others.
Any creator of anything knows this feeling. You experience someone else's innovative work. It's beautiful, brilliant, breathtaking.
You're stunned. Their ideas are unexpected and surprising, but perfect. You think, I never would have thought of that.
How do they even come up with that? It's genius. Afterwards you think, my ideas are so obvious.
I'll never be as inventive as that. I get this feeling often. Amazing books, music, movies, or even amazing conversations. I'm in awe at how the creator thinks like that.
I'm humbled. But I continue to do my work. I tell my little tales. I share my point of view. Nothing spectacular, just my ordinary thoughts.
One day someone emailed me and said, I never would have thought of that. How did you even come up with it? That's genius.
Of course, I disagreed and explained why it was nothing special. But afterwards, I realized something surprisingly profound. Everybody's ideas seem obvious.
to them. Hit songwriters often admit that their most successful hit song was one they thought was just stupid, even not worth recording. We're clearly bad judges of our own creations.
We should just put them out there and let the world decide. Are you holding back something that seems too obvious to share? This was one of the things that really helped me start my YouTube channel. I think I discovered Derek's before then or like around around the time.
At a certain point I felt like, you know, this advice I'm giving about getting into med school, this like, I don't know, study tip I'm sharing, sharing the stuff around like how I take notes on my iPad. It's all obvious. Then I read this thing. What's obvious to you can be amazing to others.
I often like to revisit books that have had a big impact on me because I like to revisit the same lessons that had an impact on me. And I realized, holy shit, I still need to, I still need to take that lesson. I have not yet like internalized the lesson that what's obvious to you can be amazing to others.
I still hold myself back from creating stuff, from publishing things, posting stuff on my newsletter, Life Notes. You can subscribe down below if you want, by the way. It's a weekly email that I send, weekly-ish, with like notes from books I'm reading.
podcast I'm listening to, that kind of stuff. I still hold myself back from putting stuff in there because it feels too obvious. I'm like, oh, everyone's read Hell Yeah or No. Everyone's read Finite and Infinite Games. Everyone's read books by Daniel Pink.
Oh, it's not worth putting the thing in. Sometimes I'll send an issue from the archives, one that I wrote like five years ago, where I'm like, yeah, I discovered this thing five years ago, but here it is now. And I'll get emails being like, whoa, I've never heard of that thing.
And to me, it's obvious because I discovered it five years ago and I've been applying it to my life. But we're getting dozens of emails from people being like, holy shit, I've never heard this thing before. Well, to you can be amazing to others. You should definitely check out this book. It is, I think, available for free on Derek Sivers'website.
I'll put a link down below. And also, if you like Derek Sivers and you vibe with his stuff, I'll put a link over here to an interview I did with Derek on my Deep Dive podcast. You can check that out.
Loads of people have said that that interview really changed their perspective of life and stuff. So I'll put a link over there. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.