Hell Yeah or No

Summary

Hell Yeah or No is a book about small ideas that have a profound impact on day to day live. It is showing different ways of clarifying "what you actually want" and inspecting why you want those things in order to live a beautiful and psychologically rich life. It's about examining and looking inwards, as well as outwards, of using strategies to make choices easier but also strategies that help make the right choices in the first place. Derek Sivers does all of this by using a beautiful mix of anecdotes, little stories or fables and metaphors for life.

Some of my favorite ideas from this little book are:

• Character is expressed in day to day actions. Those in turn shape who you are in a self-recursive way.
• Actions speak louder than words. The goal you aren't acting on right now is not a goal. Just a story you tell yourself. If it were a true goal, it would change your actions.
• Sometimes you need to quit the things that you love in order to move on to other things you might love even more.
• There is no speed-limit. You can learn things much harder than society thinks possible. But this needs a creative approach and dedicated practice.
• Saying no to everything except one core thing is a decision against decisions. It simplifies and focuses.
• Being lost or wrong are necessary ingredients for a life of learning. We are always wrong and over-correcting to think that we are below average is conducive to that style of life. Beginner's and Growth Mindset. Over time, we might become expert, but then the world is changing and so we have to continue being humble. Un-learn and Re-learn.
• Leaning into fear can help you decide what to do. If you fear something, the act of facing that fear and being brave is a good compass for making good decisions. This maps beautifully onto the "easy choices => hard life, hard choices => easy life" paradigm.

My favorite quote of the book is probably this one:

I watch the emotions pass by like a thunderstorm. And the longer I wait, the smarter I get.

Or maybe this one:

I actually love being lost because that's when I go somewhere unexpected.

But the whole book is full with little soundbites like this because Derek Sivers writing style is very conducive to this.

Detailed Notes

If you didn't need money, nor attention because you are satiated with these, what would you do?

Local vs. Global focus

Anything you don't do, but say you "want to do" is wrong. Actions are the only thing that reveals values.

Reminds me of the idea of writing down the things you want to do vs. things you are actually doing exercise from buzzfeed.

Conflicting with the stereotype -> The artist into discipline The entrepreneur not into money Musician who avoids crowds

Imitating and copying something will change it through your own lens. It will look slightly different and will be yours even if you set out to copy. Hence copying can create value.

Experience erases prejudice.

The public you is not you.

Praise and criticism to all your online work is not praise or criticism towards you, it's towards the work.

Character isn't set in stone. It is the result of actions and choices, compounded over time.

How you do anything is how you do everything. It all matters.

Book Recommendation: The Time Paradox - Phil Zimbardo

Present vs. Future focus. Living the moment vs. Planning and Delayed Gratification. Both are necessary, if you over lean into one or the other, problems arise. The focus can shift instantly. Falling in love. Doing a planning activity. The balance is important.

Refuse almost everything. Do almost nothing. But the things you do, do them all the way.

Thought: This is nice and all, but it pre-supposes that there are choices built in somehow. This is not true, sometimes you need to "go out" and make your own luck so to speak. But in a way that is a decision that leads to an action too. But if you refuse everything from the start, your surface area will stay small and you will have overall much less opportunities. There is a sweet spot after which you should start saying no to things.

Book Recommendation: Turning Pro - Steven Press field

Book Recommendation: The War of Art - Steven Pressfield

Book Recommendation: Do the Work - Steven Pressfield

Hell yeah or no is a "decision to stop deciding".

Thought: This idea, a decision to stop deciding seems so powerful. Choices that eliminate choices, strategically. There is wisdom in that, good choices restrict what choices are left over in a good way. This is also very very analogous to Tim Urban's Idea of the "bowl".

It's saying yes to one thing, an no to absolutely everything else.

If art was useful it wouldn't be art, it would be a tool.

Usefulness is a good marker for success in society but leaves creation of art by the wayside. Doing things for our own pleasure is often not useful, yet deeply important. Again, the balance is key.

It's such a luxury to not think about you out there, and how you might value me.

Usefulness is good. But.

For now, I'm nobody's tool.

Motivation is fickle. Adjust the environment to your advantage. The smallest things can make a big difference, the difference between finishing something and not.

Quitting something you love: For me that would be traveling. So give that a try?

Thinking of how the games we play can end, in advance, is helpful. Sometimes, avoiding games all together is the best move.

5 steps to get out of a bad state of mind

1. What is wrong in this very second?
2. Observe Now. Act Later.
3. Raise standards. Say no to anything less than great.
4. Focus on my goal.
5. Do all the necessary stuff.

I watch the emotions pass by like a thunderstorm. And the longer I wait, the smarter I get.

The standard pace is for chumps. If you're more driven than most people, you can do way more than anyone expects.

Thought: This chapter, There's No Speed Limit was a testimony to the powerful idea of dedicated practice. And how far it can get you in a short amount of time and how a good teacher should be facilitating dedicated practice, stretching you exactly the amount you can handle, until you can handle more, then repeat. It reminds me a lot of - half assing it with everything you've got.

Every business wants to get you addicted to their infinite updates, pings, chats, messages, and news. But if what you want out of life is to create, then those are your obstacles.

Disconnect, no wifi, no phone, no people. Cabin in the woods.

Write, practice, create.

When extremely unmotivated, do the drudgery stuff. The things you've been procrastinating for years because it was unexciting.

Ambition vs. Gratitude

Thought: This is one of the core paradoxes in life. If you are grateful because you are comparing downwards, then you can always be happy and therefore you don't need to be motivated to do better. You are already fundamentally enough. If you compare yourself upwards, you will always be miserable, but this misery makes you grow and become better. Both are necessary. And there exists a third way. Enlightenment. Doing and growing, even if you're already fundamentally enough.

Do neither and move to New Zealand to be a Tour Guide.

Thought: This reminds me of the option of becoming a sandwich maker in a far away planet from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Sometimes there are a lot of unseen, but beautiful in their own right, options.

Great insight comes only from opening your mind to many options.

Thought: The Switch Strategies chapter is exactly the thought I had earlier, there's a switch between saying yes to everything and then hell yes to one thing and no to everything else. Early on it's better to say "yes" to everything to grow the option pool. To increase the surface are. To "put yourself out there". Then later on you refine, you prune, you curate. It reminds me of exploration vs. exploitation trade offs. It also reminds me of how brains grow. First neurons branching out into every direction in early childhood, then reinforcing and pruning of the connections that matter.

To assume you're below average is to admit you're still learning.

Blame only yourself. You've created the conditions for other people to behave the way that they did. Everything that bothers you is within your realm of action.

As soon as I catch myself blaming anyone for anything, I decide it's my fault.

I actually love being wrong because that's the only time I learn. I actually love being lost because that's when I go somewhere unexpected.

The 232 sand dollars story/anecdote is powerful. The beauty is in finding the sand dollars, not owning them. Find them, then put them back in the sand for others to find, again, sharing the happiness.

Maybe what's obvious to you is amazing to someone else?

Happy, Smart and Useful -> failure modes if one of those is missing. Useful and smart => midlife crisis banker. Happy and useful => the starving artist. Happy and smart => the self help dude.

Thought: The definition of smart as "long term good for you" is so interesting. In that sense I fall into the category of of "only" happy. I'm not doing things that are good for me long term nearly enough and I'm also not that useful to others.

Mix art and a money making activity. Do one thing as a source of income and another thing as a means of expression.

Thought: Right now, most of my time is spent in expression mode, inward. Not creating. But consuming? Is that even expression then?

Art can be your main relaxation activity. But to do so needs good self control. Social media, video games, movies etc. are the easier relaxation choices.

Don't expect your job to fulfill all your emotional needs. Don't taint something you love with the need to make money from it. Don't try to make your job your whole life. Don't try to make your art your some income.

What makes you depressed if you stopped doing it? Use this as a compass.

Learning without doing is wasted.

Time really is limited. We can't pretend it's not. Time spent doing one thing is time spent not doing something else.

We don't get wise just by adding and adding. We also need to subtract.

Unlearning and re-learning is just as important as learning. Because times change. What was once true, doesn't need to stay true. Hence adjustment is necessary. Also, with this comes humbleness. Just because I was an expert yesterday doesn't mean I'm still one today. Often the answer to a question is "I don't know (anymore)"

Surprise = Learning

Book Recommendation: Positioning - Al Ries

We project meaning into everything. The meaning is not inherent to anything, yet it feels good to do this projecting. We like those stories. That make sense of the randomness and signal in the world.

Even if presented with proof that an event is totally random or neutral, we decide it has meaning anyway. It makes life more poetic and beautiful.

I'm just a beginner. It may take me another fifteen years, but I'm determined.

Thought: This is the secret to basically everything. Continued practice over long time horizon makes you good at anything. Choose whatever, do continuous smart deliberate practice for 10 years, you'll have become good at it.

The purpose of goals is not to improve the future. The future doesn't exist.

Goals have to shape the present. Your actions now. Today. Otherwise they are useless goals.

Unless it changes your actions, right now, it's not a great goal.

Taking in more and more information without acting on it is like breathing in more and more. Inspiration => in - respire => taking in breath, is incomplete. Inhalation needs exhalation. Inspiration needs creation. Without creation, it would be incomplete. Consuming more and more and more is not cutting it, you need to create too.

For every but of inspiration you take in, use it and amplify it by applying it to your work.

Whenever having an idea => daydreaming => make a folder and gather all the info and related things there. Call it "possible futures". Every once in a while, revisit those.

You grow by doing what excites you and what scares you.

Whatever scares you, go do it.

Fear is just a form of excitement.

Thought: Remember this in all circumstances. Acting despite fear is brave. In other words this advice is the same as saying be brave. But not reckless...