How to Find the Mindsets that Work For You (ft. Derek Sivers)

SOLVED with Mark Manson

Mark Manson

Self-improvement, Education

4.9 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2025

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I’ve got a special episode for you today. I sat down in person with my longtime friend and first-ever podcast guest, Derek Sivers. We haven’t recorded live before, and honestly, it shows—in the best way. It’s raw, weird, and filled with the kind of conversations we usually when we’re just hanging out together. We dig into Derek’s new book, Useful, Not True, and the big idea behind it: that our beliefs don’t need to be true to be helpful. That spins off into everything from remixing creative influences (metal + Dixieland jazz, anyone?) to why most podcasts—including mine—have gotten painfully predictable. We talk artistic reinvention, Bob Dylan, Bowie, Miles Davis, why most “thought leaders” are just regurgitating each other’s ideas, and why I'm ending the podcast as you know it—and what’s next! We also dive into the deeper stuff: the emotional power of belief, authenticity vs. performative vulnerability, therapy culture, and why sometimes the most liberating thing you can do is reject what everyone else thinks is necessary—relationships, kids, all of it. This was one of the most honest, meandering, and creatively energizing conversations I’ve had in a while. If you’re into big questions, unconventional ideas, and the occasional musical metaphor, this one’s for you. Derek’s new book- Useful, Not True: https://www.amazon.com/Useful-Not-True-Derek-Sivers-ebook/dp/B0D86K4XF5 Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: https://markmanson.net/breakthrough Follow me: https://instagram.com/markmanson/ https://twitter.com/IAmMarkManson https://facebook.com/Markmansonnet/ https://linkedin.com/in/markmanson/ https://www.tiktok.com/@iammarkmanson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I am here with the one and only, Derek Sivers, in the flesh. A very special treat.
0:07.3	We've never recorded anything live. No. I mean, you live on the other side of the world,
0:12.0	so I only get to see you. Actually, you live on the other side of the world. We'll get into that.
0:16.0	We'll get into that. So, I mean, we only see each other in person maybe every five years or so. So this is a very
0:23.3	special treat. Good to have you back on the pod. Founder of CD Baby, author of many books.
0:28.4	The new book is useful, not true. And yeah, I'm excited to get into it with you. So I actually want
0:35.3	to start every time I see you, it was actually like giving me anxiety
0:40.0	because we had brunch before we came into the studio. And we had such good conversations over brunch
0:46.0	and my like, I had this perpetual anxiety of like, no, save it, put the words back in your
0:51.9	mouth. You're like, you're going to waste it all before we start recorded.
0:55.5	But every time we hang out, we have like such good conversations. I'm curious. Where do you find ideas and inspiration?
1:02.9	I was sitting in your hotel lobby and I was looking at this Chinese dictionary and seeing how the characters were formed.
1:11.3	And to me, there's like, oh, there's something really interesting in there
1:14.0	about how some characters have meaning and some just don't.
1:17.9	You shouldn't try to put meaning into these characters.
1:20.4	And I like taking little things like that
1:22.7	and applying it to life in some other way.
1:26.4	Same way is when you're writing music,
1:29.3	you don't want to imitate the Beatles too much, right?
1:33.8	Or whatever genre you're in.
1:35.6	If you're doing heavy metal,
1:36.8	you don't want to be a clone of Iron Maiden or whatever.
	...

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