Hell Yeah or No

by Derek Sivers

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 any more? What would you do then? What would you stop doing?

I would do things for peace of mind and avoid doing anything that doesn't align with my long-term goals and values

What would you do then, if you didn’t need the money and didn’t need the attention?

He said, “If they really wanted to do it, they would have done it. You’ve been talking about this new company idea since 2008, but never launched it. Looking at your actions, and knowing you, I’d say that you don’t really want to start another company. You actually prefer the simple life you have now, focused on learning, writing, and playing with your kid. No matter what you say, your actions reveal the truth.”

That means I don't really want to write a book?

No matter what you tell the world or tell yourself, your actions reveal your real values. Your actions show you what you actually want. There are two smart reactions to this: Stop lying to yourself, and admit your real priorities. Start doing what you say you want to do, and see if it’s really true.

Social norms are powerful. The inputs that influence you are powerful. A great talk, book, or video can instantly change how you think. But on your death bed, you don’t want that horrible regret, feeling like you spent your life pursuing what someone said you should want, instead of what you actually wanted.

That’s why you need to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Know it in advance. Use it as your compass and optimize your life around it. Let the other goals be secondary so that when those decision moments come, you can choose the value that you already know matters most to you.

Because teaching or rather playing with children is something I love. And emotional intelligence because it is the need of the hour.

Be careful when you say you like or dislike something, because you could change your mind soon.

We shouldn’t preserve our first opinions as if they reflect our pure, untarnished, true nature. They’re often just the result of inexperience or a temporary phase. Old opinions shouldn’t define who we are in the future.

Your values change your focus. Being in love or making art pushes someone towards a present-focus. Ambition pushes someone towards a future-focus. Both mindsets are necessary. You need a present-focus to enjoy life. But too much present-focus can prevent the deeper happiness of achievement. (I call this “shallow happy” versus “deep happy”.)

You won’t act differently until you think of yourself differently. So start by taking one small action that will change your self-identity.

I started playing music again, for the first time in twenty years. Not trying to be famous this time. No care whether anyone else ever hears it or not. This is just for me — just playing for its own sake and loving it.

In fact, I’ll tell you a secret. When someone wants to interview me for their show, I ask them to send me some questions a week in advance. I spend hours writing down answers from different perspectives, before choosing the most interesting one. Then when we’re in a live conversation, I try to make my answers sound spontaneous.

Relatable

People say that your first reaction is the most honest, but I disagree. Your first reaction is usually outdated. Either it’s an answer you came up with long ago and now use instead of thinking, or it’s a knee-jerk emotional response to something in your past.

When you notice that something is affecting your drive, find a way to adjust your environment, even if that’s a little inconvenient for others.

I still love everything I quit. But not as much as I love all this room for change.

Before you start something, think of the ways it could end. Sometimes the smart choice is to say no to the whole game.

Focus helps me say no, because once you can clearly see where you’re heading, you’re less likely to let anything get in your way.

So if teaching then no to hectic posting.

When I was twenty-two, I quit my job and spent five months alone in a house on a remote part of the Oregon coast. Practicing, writing, recording, exercising, and learning. No internet. No TV. No phone. No people. I drove into the city only once a month to see friends and family. The rest of the time, I was completely disconnected.

!

Silence is a great canvas for your thoughts. That vacuum helps turn all of your inputs into output. That lack of interruption helps you flow.

So the next time you’re feeling extremely unmotivated, do those things you never want to do anyway.

Instead of comparing up to the next-higher situation, compare down to the next-lower one.

Whyh compare in the first place.

On the other hand, when you’re being ambitious, trying to be the best at a specific skill, it’s good to be dissatisfied, like that silver medalist focusing on the gold. You can use that drive to practice and improve. But most of the time, you need to be more grateful for what you’ve got, for how much worse it could have been, and how nice it is to have anything at all. Ambition versus gratitude. Comparing up versus comparing down.

Great insight comes only from opening your mind to many options. Brainstorm them all, from the hybrids to the ridiculous. It takes under an hour, but has always helped my friends feel less stressed, think clearly, and get excited about decisions that used to feel like dilemmas.

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.

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.

To assume you’re below average is to admit you’re still learning. You focus on what you need to improve, not your past accomplishments.

Many people are so worried about looking good that they never do anything great. Many people are so worried about doing something great that they never do anything at all.

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.

Relatable

Life feels more amazing to them if it all has meaning. (Seeking patterns in randomness is called apophenia.)

I like to think that everything is a coincidence. Life feels more amazing to me if it has no meaning. No secret agenda. Beautifully random.

Most musicians first record songs in the studio, then go perform them in concert. Fela Kuti did the opposite. He performed only new unrecorded songs in concert. Then once he recorded them in the studio, he’d never perform them again. I couldn’t help but notice the similarity. It’s as if to him, the recording was the end of the life of a song, instead of the beginning. It makes just as much sense if you think about it that way. Which of course makes me wonder about all the other beginnings and endings and things we just take for granted as fact, but make just as much sense as their opposites.

The excitement was in finding them, not keeping them.

You experience someone else’s innovative work. It’s beautiful, brilliant, breath-taking. 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.”

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.

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.

We all have a need for stability and adventure, certainty and uncertainty, money and expression. If you have too much stability, you get bored. If you don’t have enough stability, you panic. So keep the balance. Do something for love and something for money. Don’t try to make one thing satisfy your entire life.

If you don’t progress and challenge yourself creatively, it won’t satisfy the balance. Release and sell your work like a professional. Find some fans. Let them pay you. But your attitude is different than someone who needs the money. You don’t need to worry if it doesn’t sell. You don’t need to please the marketplace. You don’t need to compromise your art or value it based on others’ opinions. You’re just doing this for yourself — art for its own sake. And you’re releasing it because that’s one of the most rewarding parts — important for self-identity — and gives you good feedback on how to improve.

Most full-time artists I know only spend an hour or two a day actually doing their art. The rest is spent on the boring work that comes with trying to make it a full-time career. So skip the art career and just do the art.

Don’t expect your job to fulfill all your emotional needs. Don’t taint something you love with the need to make money from it. Don’t try to make your job your whole life. Don’t try to make your art your sole income. Let each be what it is, and put in the extra effort to balance the two, for a great life.

What makes you feel depressed, annoyed, or like your life has gone astray if you don’t do it enough? Answers to this double-negative question seem to be better indicators of what’s really worth doing.

What do you hate not doing?

The public me is not the real me anyway, so if they judge my public persona, that’s fine.

The work is the point, and my work is unique. If I can do something that people find useful, then I should. It doesn’t matter if it’s a masterpiece or not, as long as I enjoy it. I’ve got my own weird angle on things that’s a useful counter-melody in the big orchestra of life.

By cultivating his long attention span, I’m cultivating my own. By entering his world, I’m letting go of my own, like meditation. By broadening his inputs, I’m broadening my own. I thought I was being selfless. But actually, like most things we consider selfless, they benefit me as much as him.

Parenting his son

Time really is limited. We can’t pretend it’s not. Time spent doing one thing is time spent not doing something else. It’s so easy to waste time doing stuff that’s not important, not really fun, and not useful to anyone, not even yourself.

Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

The most successful people I know have a narrow focus, protect themselves against time-wasters, say no to almost everything, and have let go of old limiting beliefs. More people die from eating too much than from eating too little. Most of us have too much baggage, too many commitments, and too many priorities.

You really learn only when you’re surprised. If you’re not surprised, then everything is fitting into your existing thought patterns. So to get smarter, you need to get surprised, think in new ways, and deeply understand different perspectives.

Nothing at all. Nothing has inherent meaning. It is what it is and that’s it. We just choose to project meaning onto things. It feels good to make

A bad goal makes you say, “I want to do that someday.” A great goal makes you take action immediately. A bad goal is foggy, vague, and distant. A great goal is so clear, specific, and close you can almost touch it. (This is crucial to keep you going.) A bad goal makes you say, “I’m not sure how to start.” With a great goal, you know exactly what needs to be done next.

You grow by doing what excites you and what scares you.