Hell Yeah Or No - What's Worth Doing by Derek Sivers

keep earning your title, or it expires

"But success comes from doing, not declaring"

• Derek: Using the title but not doing the work is fooling yourself into thinking that future success is assured
• Past identities not the same as present identities.
• Action = identity
• University student identity no longer applies, but it still feels so ingrained within me
• How do I become a lifelong learner instead? I'm learning during work, but I'm learning how to problem solve or learning how some new automation works and how not to mess things up.
• Lesson -> speak in past tense what you've done, present tense on what you're actually doing
• Interestingly -> Derek made the now page

being honest about what you want, and optimizing for it

• Derek talks about being honest to yourself about what you want out of your life - want money? Optimize your career for it. Be honest, and work the things around to optimize for it.
  • I do agree that yes this is good sets great expectation from yourself. He notes that "But whatever you choose, brace yourself, because people are always going to tell you that you're wrong"
    • How do you escape this feeling? This is very difficult especially in Asian communities.
• Lesson = values/what you want lead to deciding how you want to act

The public you is not you

Derek chronicles his experience with backlash & that he realized that the criticisms received were towards a version of him that did the boo-boo (perceived), and not him. He talks about how when someone criticizes you, it's a version of you.

When someone praises you, it's a version of you who created the thing that they're praising you for. We don't have to take it to heart. They're worth reading to see how something is perceived, but you need to remember that they are seeing only a part of you who you've let be seen.

present focused vs future focused

• Present focused: Relationships-centered, pleasure, immediate gratification
• Future focused: Long-term focused, exercise, investing
• We need both to be balanced
  • Too future focused? Relationships suffer
  • Too present focused? Fuck up your career/finance lol
• Interesting point Derek made is that it is something that he sees in his behavior. When he is acting too undisciplined, it might be that his mindset is shifting to the present focused and it's unbalanced.
  • I can relate to this when sometimes I feel like I'm not working on my structured life enough and letting to-do lists slip away. Usually cause I feel lonely or unfulfilled in present focused stuff, maybe that's why I sometimes gravitate towards product-focused videos and trying to buy these things.

i'm a very slow thinker

• Derek talks about being slow to respond when someone asks for his opinion on a subject. He doesn't have one on the spot usually, and will circle back after deliberating.
  • He thinks this might be a healthier way of handling things as first reactions are often outdated whereby those reactions are the "knee-jerk" ones or emotionally charged ones upon hearing the question.

doing what you love and making money

• Don't expect your job to fulfill emotional needs, not tainting something you love with the need to make money from it.
• Don't try to make your job your whole life, but 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.

subtract

Derek says that the least successful people he knows are often easily pulled into distractions, are drawn to them or are conflicted about them. They are chained to emotional obstacles. For the most successful, they are people with a narrow focus, protect themselves from wasting time and saying mostly no to everything. They let go of their limiting beliefs.

projecting meaning

Derek explains that a lot of things in life are essentially just "things" injected with meaning. Say, Chinese characters. Most of them are phonetics and it is just given a meaning (that's why it's so memorizy lol). Something bad happens to you, you give it meaning, and you might feel like it brings your day/week/months down.

As much as you can give something meaning, you can always take it back.

if you think you haven't found your passion

It's dangerous to think in terms of "passion" and "purpose" because they sound like such huge overwhelming things. Instead, just notice what excited you and what scare you on a small moment-to-moment level.