How to Live by Derek Sivers
Review & Rating: "I liked it" / 10
Sivers did it again. I’m referring to another book that proved the number of pages or words wasn’t directionally proportional to the value of the message. The way he writes such concise precision is an inspiration.
I don’t know if this will be Sivers’s last book. But it read like a magnum opus. He spoke about working on this book for years on various podcast interviews.
He mentioned it was the extension of the life directives he had written about in his blogs. If you are unfamiliar, they were essays saying “do this, don’t do that”, something most books never seem to say while they meander about “this or that or those, who knows it depends.”
The subtitle of the book summarizes its form well: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion. Each answer goes to the extreme to the point that I get uneasy with some suggestions.
It’s not that the answers are wrong, I merely disagree and I think that’s the point. Still, they are a breath of fresh air in a world where no one wants to stand for anything.
This is a book of tools. You could read any paragraph in any page and it will spur thoughts that are probably worth sitting down, writing out, and thinking through.
I think reading Sivers’s extreme answers are one way in which the readers can come up with their own conclusions. It’s the opinionated conversation partner that won’t rush you for an answer.
It’s a book that helps readers get a sense of who they are. Isn’t that what we are after? We don’t care about how others will live. It’s how we want to live as individuals.
Book Notes:
Writing notes for this book was a tricky affair. The point of these notes are so I have a way of preserving my marginalia notes in the case a fire destroys all my books.
Therefore, the notes will be in the form of directives for myself. They’ll be a mix of directives I already do, believe to be right and ones I strive to remember.
Rebelling is reacting to others. Do what you’d do if you were the only person on Earth.
Ignore crowds and social media.
Don’t identify or label the self with political groups, religions, or any kind of “side”.
Always decide for yourself. Don’t do it because of what others say.
“When you know what you’re doing, you won’t care what anyone else is doing.”
Don’t blame others. Who you blame has power over you. This applies to race, culture, gender, society, etc… Blaming is playing the victim. It’s cheap.
Self-mastery is the only path to freedom.
Freedom can be as simple as letting go of the past. It’s abdicating everything you were before and everything you did back then. None of it matters today. Cherish the experiences. Don’t be bound by them.
Live where you feel free. Notice how places make you feel.
Giving everything a healthy distance allows you the space to appreciate it truly without having it forced upon you. Remember how you started truly appreciating family only when you lived far away from them.
Don’t get comfortable. Move. Change your environment constantly. Travel perpetually.
What you chose to do was the best option. That’s why you chose it for that specific point in time given who you were.
You can always control your attitude to a situation.
People will treat you better when they see commitment. That’s why people latch on the years at a job or treat regulars better.
Habits create the character.
Figure out what’s important to you. Your mind can’t help you get anywhere unless you give it some direction.
Endure. It’s supposed to be hard.
Be with those who see the best you could be. Avoid those who ask you to settle and ignore those who point out flaws.
“All actions are optional.”
Places and things don’t create emotions. You do. A job or marriage doesn’t keep security. You can feel security without it.
Assume everyone’s opinions have a question mark at the end. You can ignore questions.
Observe. Don’t jump to conclusions.
Investors make the most money by doing the least. Do that.
Write things to do down. Let time help you figure out if it’s worth doing. Will it be important in a year or ten?
When picking habits or behaviours to adopt, consider what would happen if you did it every day into perpetuity. What you do every day will define you.
No country is the best. Those who’ve traveled wide know this. Leave home and travel not to be wise but not to be an idiot.
What can’t be bought, inherited, rushed, or stolen? Mastery. It can only be earned by the individual practicing non-stop.
“The most rewarding things in life take years. Only bad things happen quickly.”
Failure isn’t choosing the wrong path but not choosing at all. Choose, then work at becoming better. Move on if you must but that too is a choice!
What is success to you? Describe it in detail. You need to know what you’re aiming at.
Good goals improve the present because it makes you take action today. The future is unknowable. We merely hope the actions get us somewhere roughly there.
Make rituals. Form habits. Act every day starting with today. Don’t seek inspiration. Inspiration comes when you act.
It’s hard to maintain momentum. Don’t let up. The temptation of sloth always gets stronger the longer you stay on the journey.
Always aim high. But start by doing the easiest smallest thing you can do to get there. It’s a balance.
Surround yourself with fellow freaks.
Extreme results require extreme actions. Don’t do what normal people do and expect anything outside of that.
Fear is the mindkiller. Do what you’re afraid to do.
Have difficult conversations. Be willing to look like a fool. Don’t shy away from pain.
Comfort is for the weak. It’ll render you useless and kill you.
At a crossroads, do what seems harder, less prestigious, and less certain.
Good luck makes you complacent. Bad luck makes you stronger. Embrace it.
Pain is unavoidable. Learn to embrace it. You’ll get braver.
Saying the truth is hard. Always take the path of telling the truth. Lying is avoidance.
Learn the lesson inside every pain.
Hard choices easy life, easy choices hard life.
Focus now on what fascinates you. Focus on that thing entirely. There is no later, it means you don’t care. Do you even know what excites you? Can you answer that?
Refrain from new fads. Focus on what has endured the test of time. Time is the best filter. Read the classics. Consume the greats. Focus on what has lasted. This applies to investing and business as well. Look at what persists.
Before improving an old system ask yourself why it is so. Have some humility. You aren’t a genius and people that came before you were not idiots. There are reasons why people do what things the way they have for a long time.
The more you learn, the more embarrassed you should be of your past self.
You know it when you can explain it in your own words.
“Writing is refined thinking.”
Wisdom compounds while the body decays.
Read history. Human morals haven’t changed. Nothing about human behaviour today is new. We’ve done it in one form or another for decades and centuries.
“Self-control is always the right thing to do.”
Humour is control. Learn to laugh at yourself and all situations.
Consider how funny we humans are. Life is inherently meaningless. Yet we go about with such intensity. How funny life is.
Worrying is a waste of time. Worry comes from events outside our control that haven’t happened. How silly! Prepare for it. Then, let it go.
Focus on what you can control. That’s all that matters. Most outcomes are outside our control. Focus on the inputs and processes that are within our control.
“Shallow happy is trying to conquer the world. Deep happy is conquering yourself.”
When you want to compliment, do so. We need more of that in the world. Go first. Make friends. Be vulnerable.
Never lose your cool. Control the anger.
Share everything you do. Give yourself to the world.
Adjust your self-image so that you can be rich.
Avoid hard problems. Do what comes easy to you. Avoid competition. Create a category of one.
Don’t loan money to friends. Just give it.
Your home is an expense to let you live somewhere. It’s not an asset.
Money amplifies who you are. It doesn’t change you. Don’t blame it.
You aren’t a single identity. You aren’t this or that. You are complex. We are all. Don’t boil people down to a few things and don’t do that to yourself either. Have some self-respect.
“The timid cling to achievements.”
Love requires full attention.
“Learn about people to empathize with them."
Listen to people. When they share problems or what’s broken. Don’t try to fix it! Have some humility. You are not an expert and they aren’t asking you to fix it. Trying to fix it is you being arrogant and wanting to be liked and admired. When someone is vulnerable with you, love their problems and brokenness. Don’t fix it. Also, don’t waste time with people who think they are the ones to fix you when you share to connect. Those people are not ready.
Lead with real honesty. No connection can be made without telling the truth. Everything else are shallow relationships.
Nobody will save you. You have to do the work yourself. Don’t pawn that off to someone else. You think it’s working but it isn’t.
Notice the people who bring out the best in you and make you feel comfortable, connected, and understood. Stick with them. Stick with the people who bring out your honest self.
Create. Finish it. Launch it. The world is filled with people who say they could’ve done something but never did. Don’t be one of them.
“Do your work every day, no matter what.”
If you have the choice, choose to create instead of consuming.
The more you create, the more creative you will get. You get better with practice.
There is quality in quantity. For the few great creations, you have to go through a whole lot of bad ones. So, create bad ones. Better to make something bad than nothing at all. The people who disagree will be those who’ve never created anything themselves and why care about their opinions? They’ll forget all about it when you have one great creation out of a thousand.
Your flaws and weirdness are what you need to harness to create. That’s the secret sauce.
Discover yourself through creating. Don’t make something you think others will like. If you aren’t excited by it, others won’t be either. Excitement is infectious.
Instead of trying to make the best decision or the right ones, focus on avoiding the bad ones. Invert! Cut out bad people in your life, cut out bad food, cut out distractions, etc…
“Do what everyone says not to.”
Try everything. Make lots of mistakes. Find out for yourself.
Failure is a result of one attempt. It isn’t yourself.
The difference between people who succeed and fail is that one quit after a failure, that’s how they earned their title as a failure.
Making mistakes keeps you young. Ignore the biological age. Those in the 20s who don’t make mistakes and play it safe might as well be dead.
Find what bothers you and do something about it. All the learning in the world is useless until you do something with it.
“Go where there’s a revolution.”
Embrace deadlines. Inspiration comes to those with a disciplined schedule.
Don’t postpone anything. Don’t postpone love, dreams, happiness, and expression.