The Goal of This Post

This post shares some of my favorite passages and ideas from Useful Not True by Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby and advocate of small, intentional businesses.

In this book, Sivers challenges the idea that beliefs must be true to be valuable. Instead, he proposes five core perspectives that invite us to treat beliefs as tools — chosen not for their accuracy, but for their usefulness in shaping action, identity, and peace of mind.

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#1. Almost nothing people say is true

• It’s just their current perspective. They’re not wrong. It’s just not the only answer.
• To the person speaking, these feel like facts, not opinions.
• Statements are just one biased point of view.
• No picture is the whole picture. It’s just one of many possible angles.
• People communicate for social and emotional reasons. Socially, they want to bond. Emotionally, they want validation.
• Feelings matter. To address them, we have to distinguish them. Get the dry facts, with no interpretation.
• Actions have no inherent meaning. Manners, norms, and meanings are never true.
• Consider what incentives make a belief useful. Separate the person and the actions.
• People’s motives are unknowable, even to themselves. Let go of the need for a reason.
• Memories feel like facts but they’re not. People don’t doubt their memory, but you should.
• Even science isn’t true. It’s better to be curious than correct. It’s intellectual humility.

It’s so easy to see their faults. It’s much harder to find fault in yourself.

Remember that you make those same mistakes.

#2. Your thoughts aren’t true

• You take some principles or values very seriously. You think of them as undeniable truths.
• You can’t trust your mind… Proceed with less confidence and more humility.
• Next time you look back, you should look again. Make peace with the past and move on.
• Replay your past from different angles until you find the lesson or closure you need.
• We inherit pictures of how to think and act, and tend to keep them as-is, even if they’re problematic.
• A belief is something you think is true, without proof. Beliefs are a stance on what’s inconclusive.
• The more emotional the belief, the less likely it’s true.

Beliefs have a purpose. They help us adopt a perspective or identity. They help us take action, or cooperate with others. The only problem is when we confuse belief with reality, and insist that something is absolutely true because we believe it.

Beliefs don’t exist outside the mind. All beliefs are make believe.

#3. Ideas can be useful, not true

• We can choose beliefs that are not true because they’re useful to compensate for our bias.
• Ideas and beliefs are tools. Choose them for the desired effect.
• Beliefs create emotions. Emotions create actions. Choose a belief for the action it creates.
• “Useful”. Whatever ultimately helps you do what you need to do, be who you want to be, or feel at peace.
• Beliefs exist to guide your actions. If you’re not acting in alignment with your beliefs, you’ve missed the point of beliefs.
• Listen to ideas, not their messenger. Focus on the contents, not the box. Avoid ideology.
• Which story helps you do what you need to do, who you want to be, or feel at peace?
• Everyone needs different beliefs for their different situations.
• Meanings are entirely in your head. But their effect on you is real.
• Nothing has inherent meaning. Whatever meaning you project onto it is your own.

Meanings can help you feel your life is important, with a narrative and purpose. Meanings can help you make peace with events out of your control. Meanings can give you a reason to persist in difficult times. But they’re internal, not external.

Meanings are useful, not true.

#4. Reframe: Find better perspectives

• Explore many different ways of looking at your situation. Find perspectives you’ve never considered before.
• Think a different way and you’ll feel a different way.
• Choose your reaction. Not the first one, but the next.
• Ask better questions. Every problem becomes, “What’s great about this?”
• Push past that first thought. Keep asking. You can always find something useful.
• To change, reach past what comes naturally. Avoid your defaults.

Switching from sad to happy is always an option, even at the worst times in life.

#5. Adopt what works for you now

• No choice is best in life. A choice becomes the best when you choose it.
• Do the work that makes it a great choice.
• Time for output. Run the program. Let yourself execute one plan of action, and see it through to fruition.
• Review your journal often, so you can remind yourself of your decision, reasons, vision and plan.
• Explaining it to different people helps you refine it. We know ourselves through others.
• Your choice helps you do what you need to do, be who you want to be, or feel at peace.
• Take the first step immediately. Taking action tests your thought in reality. Start momentum.
• Sometimes you need to stick to the plan and adjust your thoughts. Sometimes you need to update the plan.

You are your actions. Your actions are you. Your self-image doesn’t matter as much. Your outside doesn’t need to match your inside.

When you realize what you need to do, it doesn’t mean that’s who you need to be. You can just pretend.

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Final Quote: On Journaling

Once you find a viewpoint you want to adopt, a great tool to internalize it is a private journal:

• Strengthen it by stacking up the reasons you choose it.
• Clarify it by defining it so simply it’s easy to remember.
• Plan it with a specific list of actions.
• Picture the changes vividly. Describe your new self-identity and its implications.
• Prepare for setbacks. Outsmart your future self that will try to revert to its old self.

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All content credit goes to the author(s). I’ve shared the bits I’ve enjoyed the most and found most useful.

Cheers ’til next time! Saludos!
Alberto