3.5 Ideas from Derek Sivers — Useful, Not True

TED Speaker & author — Derek Sivers

“We choose what we believe not because it’s true, but because it’s useful to believe it.” — Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers is a best selling author, TED Speaker, entrepreneur, former circus ringleader and founder of CD Baby (which he sold for $22 million and gave the money to charity).

Derek’s work focuses on questioning conventional wisdom and finding better ways to think about life’s challenges.

In his latest book “Useful, Not True,” Derek explores how we choose beliefs based on their utility rather than absolute truth, drawing from extensive research studying religious texts, philosophy, and psychology.

3.5 Ideas from Derek Sivers:

1) We Choose Beliefs Based on Usefulness, Not Truth

• “Instead of people arguing about whether something’s absolutely true or not, you could just skip the whole argument because true or not is not the question. The question is: is it useful or not?”
• “Even if you say business is a place to be generous — I never said it was true. That’s not the point. If you think that way, does that guide your actions in a more considerate way? Yes. So therefore I’m going to choose to believe this because it’s useful.”

2) Control Your Focus by Controlling Your Environment

• “When I know I need to do some tough mental work, and I know in advance I’m going to have some desire for distraction… I will actually go into the closet and turn off the broadband modem.”
• “You have to stop and catch yourself. Am I just doing this because it worked for me before, or is it actually still the right thing to do now?”

3) There’s Always Another Way to Look at Any Situation

• “‘Not true’ doesn’t mean false. It means it’s not the only answer. True means like a square has four sides — that’s just true. If it’s three sides, it’s no longer a square. But almost everything in life, we catch ourselves thinking there’s one way to see this.”
• “We’ve lost our UK visa now, so we can’t just move back to to the UK. So I thought, well, alright, he won’t learn the stuff he would have learned at Oxford. But maybe in this era of supercomputers getting faster by the minute and smarter with AI, maybe the stuff that New Zealand has to offer will end up being more valuable than what Oxford has to offer. Here in New Zealand, he can learn camping, fishing, hiking. He can learn to fly an airplane, survive in the wild, sailing… these kinds of things that he couldn’t learn in Oxford. Might end up being more valuable in his lifetime.”

3.5) What’s ONE LESSON Everyone Should Take Away?

• “There’s always another way to look at any situation. You gotta remind yourself that it’s not the only way to see things.”
• “Stop and ask yourself, what’s a better way to see it? Even if you’re completely convinced of your rational reasons, you made that decision for irrational, emotional reasons you may never know.”

Connect with Derek Sivers:

• Derek’s Book: “Useful, Not True”
• Built Not Born Podcast (#66): Derek Sivers “Hell Yeah or No”
• Derek’s Website: www.Sive.rs

“Life Is Built, Not Born.”

Joe Ciccarone

#Episode159