This is an auto-generated transcript of Never Enough Podcast Episode 7. It may contain minor errors.
an Explorer is a pain in the ass to follow the Explorer may change his mind daily and a leader goes in a straight line a leader says here's where we're going here's how we're going to get there follow me what are you interested in right now what are you obsessing over oh my useful not true book not for the sake of selling a book I don't care about that but just the subject of choosing beliefs because they're useful not because they're true last night I spent hours writing and thinking about what is it that makes beliefs useful
like what do useful beliefs have in common and I came up with some traits things like they help me go directly for what I really want instead of some roundabout way right so if you're thinking that you need a college degree to get status well then maybe there's a more direct way to go directly to the status instead of four years of college another trait is useful beliefs are often selfless you kind of zoom out and realize you're just one of many billions on Earth
I just did an interview with Mark Manson and he basically says look the world is pointless life is meaningless but you need something to hold on to is it that sort of thing like inventing truths for yourself I think Mark is just projecting his value there saying you need something to hold on to I'd say that's not true that's just him saying this works for me and I'm going to prescribe it for others because I think many could benefit from this but it's not necessarily true
how did you come to write that book it was more that the subject was underneath everything I had been talking about for years like my anything you want book I'm saying things like business is not about making money business is a way about making a little Utopia where you can make everything the way you want it to be well that's not necessarily true that's just one point of view that helps me it helps me get more intrinsically interested in creating a good business
the harm is in declaring it to be absolutely true like everybody needs to do this I've always been sharing beliefs that are useful to me that are not necessarily true and every now and then people would push back saying hey that's not true and I'd say I know it's not true I never said it was true I choose beliefs because they're useful to me not because they're true and after saying this for years I thought I should write a book about this
this is book number five for me and the five books have come from four different motivations the first book anything you want I never intended to write a book but Seth Goden called me and asked me to so of course I said yes the next two books were collections of articles my fourth book how to live was a flash of artistic inspiration like an art piece that took me four years to make where it had 27 chapters each with a strong opinion of how to live and each chapter disagreeing with the rest
and then this new book useful not true there was just an idea that just kept coming up kind of underneath the surface and I spent the last two years learning more about the subject I read 20-some books about pragmatism denialism religion cognitive behavioral therapy and all of these subjects around the idea of choosing beliefs that are useful to you not because they're true and now I'm sharing what I've learned
do you think that you write to sort out your own ideas the books are for others but that book how to live was just for me I needed this thing to exist I thought it was the most beautiful idea if nobody liked it I wouldn't care so what was 38 to 54 like for you the last 16 years have been a lot of exploration I think about the difference between an Explorer and a leader where the Explorer goes off to uncharted land and just starts poking around taking every little turn
an Explorer is a pain in the ass to follow because the Explorer may change his mind daily but then when the Explorer finds a harbor that looks like a great place to set up a town then the Explorer sends a message back and a leader is appointed a leader goes in a straight line a leader says here's where we're going here's how we're going to get there follow me and a leader does not explore
I had 24 years of my life from age 15 until 38 I was head down and focused on one thing I spent 15 years head down saying I'm going to be a successful musician that's it don't distract me then at 29 while selling my music I accidentally started my company and I just put my head down for 10 years on that one thing I was like I'm gonna make the best damn little record store
and so it wasn't until I was 38 that I really lifted up my head for the first time in my life and I started doing things the opposite of whatever I had been doing if my instinct was telling me to turn left I would turn right and if everything in me was telling me to stop I would go and I did that to deliberately scramble my patterns and force exploration
when I met you I hadn't seen you I don't think in 15 or even 20 years I think we met at the Ted conference in 2008 and I looked you up I was in Wellington and we had coffee and you said something really interesting you said when you sold your company your urge was to do it again to prove to the world that you were not a fluke and you said I wasn't going to play the same game that I'd already done
I optimize for personal growth not for bank account growth or status growth so when I sold CD Baby yeah my first thought was I can leverage this I'm going to go to Silicon Valley and be a Serial entrepreneur and I got a few months into that and I realized that if I were to do that it wouldn't really be personal growth it would be bank account growth I'd be doing the same thing I had been doing for 10 years
I thought well real growth would be to do something truly different not doing the same thing it's kind of like a quote I heard that real Rebellion is not wearing black like everyone else real Rebellion feels like wearing a clown suit to high school so true personal growth is not doing the same thing you've been doing but a little more so I halted my plans I left Silicon Valley and I went to India and Iceland and started traveling the world
I was dating this girl and she said I come from a really strict religious family I can't travel with you unless we're married and everything in me said no I don't even know you it's only been a few months so I was like oh all right sure I'll marry you because it was the opposite of what my instincts were telling me and I don't regret it in the bigger sense it's led to a much fuller life
you used the term burning the boats you talked about how you took radical changes to enforce that you would not continue down the path of money and business the most direct radical one was renouncing my US citizenship which came from saying I love America it's my comfort zone therefore I'm going to ban myself from going there anymore I used the metaphor of burning the ships to prevent retreat
you also did that with your finances I already had about $4 million in my personal bank account as net profit I was the sole owner of the company and I had this agreement to sell the company for $22 million and I thought through about what I would do with $22 million and I just thought I just don't want it the 4 million I had saved was after expenses I had already bought a car and bought a house what else are you going to do with it
so I'm just going to give it away there are people literally dying because they don't have money and I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to do with my money my lawyer said if you're really serious we can structure this so the entire $22 million goes to charity and I said I like that because then the money never touches my hands I can never be tempted and that's what we did
and how do you live now I had that $4 million and that has grown since then I just stick it in ETFs occasionally I turn to my private journal and ask what would I do if I suddenly had a billion dollars and every time I really think hard I just can't think of anything I would do with it there's nothing I want so I still think I did the right thing
you've got a lot of friends that are very wealthy how do you see wealth negatively impact their life it seems to throw off perspective my first anti role model was a friend who had sold his company for 30 million and he said yeah it was only 10 million pounds and I was like God I hope I never say that I think that's harmful I think we should never lose perspective on how much money that is
did the money that you put into the foundation become a burden I set it up so that while I'm alive the charitable Trust keeps that 22 million and it invests it and compounds it when I die hopefully it's like 100 million by then and that's when all the money goes to charity so I'm not even the trustee it's out of my hands it's totally out of my control
since then you've left the idea of accumulating money behind and how do you spend your time a typical day for me is I wake up at 4:00 or 5 a.m. I wish I didn't but for some reason my brain goes I'm ready let's go and I start writing I am either writing Diaries books code emails basically finger on Keys writing from 5:00 a.m. till about 10 or 11 p.m. with some short breaks to eat maybe take a walk in the forest
I don't really have a newsletter I have my blog and my books and that's it I have an email list of people that have emailed me over the years there's like a quarter million people that have contacted me but it's a two-way conversation it's not a newsletter blast when I'm coming to wherever they live I'll email them and say hey I'm coming would you like to meet up
I diary a lot to sort out my thoughts when I come up with something that seems worth sharing I'll make a version for the public which is much more succinct than my rambly thoughts in a diary so you might spend 16 hours writing and dwelling on a problem are you introverted yes and no I am super interested in people I would much rather personally be living in a super Multicultural place like Dubai London where I'd like to be meeting people from around the world
but since I can't do that in person I think that's why I keep my email inbox open and I love hearing from people around the world and emailing with them every day your book hell yeah or no what are some things that you are hard no on never do heroin that's a good one here's one I've made a really clear decision that my boy is my top priority I've only got one kid this is it
he and I talk almost every day we're like best friends and he wants me to be here in his life so I want to be here where he is even though I know I could just hand him off to his mother and go be somewhere else he's my top priority so my only real hard no in life is anything that would hurt our relationship
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