5 Life Changing Lessons from My Favorite Book

2024-09-03 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:20 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Mindset, motivation and happiness (also: Productivity and time, Goals, purpose and life design) · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: Lesson from a book, Feel-Good Productivity thesis, His own products discussed

Ali reads five excerpts from Derek Sivers's Hell Yeah or No and comments on each: what you would do without needing money or attention, say no unless it is "hell yeah", relax for the same result, change "and" to "or" in your rules, and what is obvious to you can be amazing to others.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Introduction: five lessons from a short favourite book by Derek Sivers

★★ Ali shares five lessons from Derek Sivers's short book Hell Yeah or No that he keeps revisiting; he calls Sivers one of his favourite thinkers in the world. — 00:00:00 · Derek Sivers, hell yeah or no
★★ Derek Sivers (quoted): Derek Sivers asks what you would do, and stop doing, if you had so much money and attention that you could not want more, once you were ready to be useful to others again. — 00:00:00 · Derek Sivers

00:00:20 — What would you do if you didn't need money or attention?

★★★ What to do with your life is a central question most people face in their 20s, often after graduating; one of the best things Ali has found for it is to explore, trying lots of things to see what vibes. — 00:01:18
★★ Ali also recommends journaling prompts such as Derek Sivers's question of what you would do if you did not care about money or attention, which pull you away from default goals of status, success, money and security. — 00:01:41 · Derek Sivers
★★★ Derek Sivers (quoted): Derek Sivers advises saying no to anything you are not feeling "hell yeah" about: saying yes to less frees your time and mind, so you can give full attention to what really excites you. — 00:01:41 · hell yeah or no, Derek Sivers

00:01:57 — If you're not feeling hell yeah, then say no; sevens kill businesses

★★ Derek Sivers (quoted): Derek Sivers says saying yes is good when you are starting out, wanting any opportunity or needing variety, but bad when you are overwhelmed, overcommitted or need to focus. — 00:02:31 · hell yeah or no, Derek Sivers
★★ Ali says saying no is a lesson he keeps needing to relearn, and that every entrepreneur he looks up to really struggles with it too. — 00:02:56 · hell yeah or no
★★ Once you know what you want to focus on, Ali says, any deviation or distraction scatters you in different directions and you make no meaningful progress, so focus requires the ability to say no. — 00:03:19
★ Ali recalls a famous writer, whose name he cannot remember, saying that successful writers get so much fan mail that answering it would leave no time to write; many writers lose focus on their work this way. — 00:03:19
★★★ Ali cites the business phrase "sevens kill businesses": a person, project or opportunity you said yes to because it was only a seven out of ten exciting is not worth doing. — 00:03:47

“Sevens kill businesses.”
★★ Saying no to threes is easy but sevens are hard to refuse, Ali says; take them on and your calendar and to-do list are soon rammed, you feel overwhelmed, and the work that moves the needle falls by the wayside. — 00:04:21

00:04:43 — Relax for the same result: the bike ride, 43 versus 45 minutes, and play

★★ Derek Sivers (quoted): Derek Sivers tells how his all-out sprint round a 15-mile bike loop by the beach in Santa Monica always took 43 minutes; riding it relaxed one day, he took 45. — 00:05:07 · Derek Sivers
★★★ Derek Sivers (quoted): When he is stressed or driving himself to exhaustion, Derek Sivers dials back his effort by 50% and finds things often get done just as well and as fast: half his effort was unnecessary stress. — 00:05:52 · Derek Sivers
★★ Ali first came across Derek Sivers's work around 2016 through an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show and then binged everything Sivers had written. — 00:06:30 · Derek Sivers, The Tim Ferriss Show
★★★ Sometimes putting in a little less effort and taking a task less seriously is just the thing to do, Ali says; the first chapter of his book Feel-Good Productivity, on play, says play is unlocked when we lower the stakes. — 00:06:30 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
★★ Much of the resistance, discipline and drive we put into our work does not make us faster or our output more efficient, Ali says; it just makes us feel bad. — 00:07:05
★★ Derek Sivers (quoted): Derek Sivers's procrastination hack: his unwritten conditions for exercising were joined by "and" and rarely all held; on his coach's advice he changed "and" to "or", now exercises quite often, and suggests others do the same with their conditions. — 00:07:32 · Derek Sivers

00:07:37 — Change "and" to "or": the exercise conditions, Tony Robbins's muddle story and the rules for a good day

★★ Ali values changing "and" to "or" less as a procrastination hack than as a great hack for being more satisfied with life; he came across it at a Tony Robbins event. — 00:08:14
★★ Ali retells Tony Robbins's story of a girl who tidies her father's desk and says every object he moves puts it back in a muddle: there are many ways for the desk to be in a muddle but only one for it to be good. — 00:08:14
★★ As a student Ali had unwritten rules for feeling satisfied joined by "and": all lectures attended, a good night's sleep, some socialising and an essay finished early; so he was almost never satisfied and felt he had not done enough. — 00:09:02
★★★ Following Derek Sivers and Tony Robbins, Ali advises changing "and" to "or" in your rules for feeling good, so that a day is good when you went to your lectures or slept well or socialised with someone or made progress on an essay. — 00:09:45 · Derek Sivers
★★ If there is only one way to have a good day but a hundred ways for it to be bad, Ali says, you will probably have a lot of bad days; with easier rules you do the same things but choose to feel more satisfied. — 00:09:45 · choose to be satisfied

00:10:34 — Obvious to you, amazing to others: starting his channel and holding back LifeNotes issues

★★★ Derek Sivers (quoted): Derek Sivers says everybody's ideas seem obvious to them and hit songwriters often thought their biggest hit stupid; we are bad judges of our own creations, so we should put them out there and let the world decide. — 00:11:26 · Derek Sivers
★★★ Derek Sivers's idea that what is obvious to you can be amazing to others is one of the things that really helped Ali start his YouTube channel. — 00:11:26 · YouTube, Derek Sivers
★★★ Revisiting the book, Ali realises he has not yet internalised that what's obvious to you can be amazing to others: he still holds back from creating and from posting things in his LifeNotes newsletter because they feel too obvious. — 00:11:55 · Sunday Snippets, Feel-Good Productivity (book)
★★ When Ali sends a LifeNotes issue from the archives, written about five years earlier, he gets emails from readers who have never heard of the idea. — 00:12:40 · Sunday Snippets
★★ Ali recommends Derek Sivers's book Hell Yeah or No, which he thinks is available free on Sivers's website. (hedged) — 00:12:40 · Derek Sivers, hell yeah or no

Threads in this video

refine · How do you find your purpose or what to do with your life? — What to do with your life is a central question most people face in their 20s, often after graduating; one of the best things Ali has found for it is to explore, trying lots of things to see what vibes. (00:01:18)
restate · How do you find your purpose or what to do with your life? — Ali also recommends journaling prompts such as Derek Sivers's question of what you would do if you did not care about money or attention, which pull you away from default goals of status, success, money and security. (00:01:41)
restate · How do you decide what to say yes to? — Derek Sivers advises saying no to anything you are not feeling "hell yeah" about: saying yes to less frees your time and mind, so you can give full attention to what really excites you. (00:01:41)
restate · How do you decide what to say yes to? — Ali says saying no is a lesson he keeps needing to relearn, and that every entrepreneur he looks up to really struggles with it too. (00:02:56)
refine · How do you decide what to say yes to? — Ali cites the business phrase "sevens kill businesses": a person, project or opportunity you said yes to because it was only a seven out of ten exciting is not worth doing. (00:03:47)
restate · Should productivity be about efficiency or about enjoying the work? — When he is stressed or driving himself to exhaustion, Derek Sivers dials back his effort by 50% and finds things often get done just as well and as fast: half his effort was unnecessary stress. (00:05:52)
refine · Should productivity be about efficiency or about enjoying the work? — Sometimes putting in a little less effort and taking a task less seriously is just the thing to do, Ali says; the first chapter of his book Feel-Good Productivity, on play, says play is unlocked when we lower the stakes. (00:06:30)
restate · Should productivity be about efficiency or about enjoying the work? — Much of the resistance, discipline and drive we put into our work does not make us faster or our output more efficient, Ali says; it just makes us feel bad. (00:07:05)
restate · How do you beat procrastination? — Derek Sivers's procrastination hack: his unwritten conditions for exercising were joined by "and" and rarely all held; on his coach's advice he changed "and" to "or", now exercises quite often, and suggests others do the same with their conditions. (00:07:32)
restate · How do you become happier? — Following Derek Sivers and Tony Robbins, Ali advises changing "and" to "or" in your rules for feeling good, so that a day is good when you went to your lectures or slept well or socialised with someone or made progress on an essay. (00:09:45)
refine · How do you become happier? — If there is only one way to have a good day but a hundred ways for it to be bad, Ali says, you will probably have a lot of bad days; with easier rules you do the same things but choose to feel more satisfied. (00:09:45)
restate · How do you get past perfectionism and the fear of starting? — Derek Sivers says everybody's ideas seem obvious to them and hit songwriters often thought their biggest hit stupid; we are bad judges of our own creations, so we should put them out there and let the world decide. (00:11:26)
restate · How do you get past perfectionism and the fear of starting? — Revisiting the book, Ali realises he has not yet internalised that what's obvious to you can be amazing to others: he still holds back from creating and from posting things in his LifeNotes newsletter because they feel too obvious. (00:11:55)
refine · Should you journal, and how? — Ali also recommends journaling prompts such as Derek Sivers's question of what you would do if you did not care about money or attention, which pull you away from default goals of status, success, money and security. (00:01:41)

Mentioned

Central: Derek Sivers · hell yeah or no · Hell Yeah or No: What's Worth Doing · obvious to you, amazing to others

Also: People: Daniel Pink · Tony Robbins

Projects: Deep Dive · Sunday Snippets

Works: Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Finite and Infinite Games · The Tim Ferriss Show

Organizations: YouTube

Concepts: change "and" to "or" · choose to be satisfied · relax for the same result · sevens kill businesses

Places: California

Also centred on Hell Yeah or No: What's Worth Doing: My Top 5 Books On Entrepreneurship 📚 #shorts

Also centred on obvious to you, amazing to others: 15 Lessons that Improved My Life · 5 Lessons I've Learned about Racism · How To Beat Imposter Syndrome · The Key to Success on YouTube · Why I almost lost 10 million views

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