Useful, not True

November, 2025

Derek Sivers wrote another great book "Useful, not True". This book guide you on how to reframe your perspective to achieve your goals. Small book, a lot of practical advises. Also, Derek is generous to give away his e-books for free.

If I summarize the book to one sentence, it will be "Adopt a belief/perspective that will help you to take action.". I'm adding my notes below, not sure if I violate any copyrights by doing so, if that's the case I will remove them.

1. Almost nothing people say is true

  • Most of the time we give meaning to the events around us. Those are not absolute truths but opinion’s and perspectives we give to them.
  • Confirmation bias is real, we find evidence to support what we think is true. That’s why seeking truth is important. If a ceiling is 10 feet tall, we can come up with explanations to show that it is 12 feet or 8 feet but it doesn’t change the underlying fact that it’s real height is 10 feet
  • Try to remove feelings and meanings, get the dry facts with no interpretations
  • If someone's beliefs that are crazy to you, understand what incentives from their point of view makes that belief useful.
    • We adopt belief because they are useful to us for a period of time
    • Beliefs can change over time, when they are become less useful to us
  • Brain find explanations for the things we do, why do we do things sometime are not even clear to us. Brain just make things to us. “All excuses are bullshit” is a perfect way to put it. Let go of need for a reason. The only true facts are their actions
  • Most important theory is not the useful. Find a close enough rule of thumb that help you to get to where you want to go
    • For moon landing and satellite launch’s Newton’s theories are good enough where they don’t need to use Einstein's theory of relativity
  • If a belief or doubt make you do something good, then choose that view because that’s the most useful to you
    • If it is true, what do you do about it
    • If it is false, what do you do about it
    • If you don’t care if it is true or false, then forget about it
  • Distrust limitations, strip away interpretations to see the raw facts. We are held back not from the true facts but the meaning we give to them

2. Your thoughts aren't true

  • If we find someone else strange then most likely we are the strange one. It is like, person on the other riverbank sees us as being on the “other riverbank”. Since we know other people beliefs are not true, our beliefs are also not true
  • Replay past scenarios to looking at them from the different angle. It will help you to find a lesson or closure you need.
  • We structure out internal dialog based on our past experiences, we keep them those structures and interpretations as they are because we grew familiar with them. It is like, keeping an inherited painting upside down. Get those pictures, reframe, and see if those structures we have in place are in the right place. If not we have the freedom to change them
  • No need to get emotional over beliefs. When there are proofs on the contexts and conditions where our beliefs do not hold true, make sure to be aware of them. No need to get emotional about it. If there are conclusive proof to show that belief is not correct, just accept it
  • Your first thought is an obstacle, we need to train ourselves to look beyond that first though. First thought is instinct, in order to let wisdom do the work we have to go beyond instincts

3. Ideas can be useful, not true

  • When mind keep missing the target, compensate to other way to make sure we hit the target
    • Tend to blame others for everything, adopt a view where you assume everything is your fault to compensate
  • Ideas and beliefs are tools. Use them to achieve your goals
  • Choose a belief for the actions it creates
  • “Useful”
    • Whatever ultimately helps you to become who you want to be, to what you want to do or be at peace
  • Don’t wait for the perfect tool, use whatever tool available to you to get your things done
  • Listen to ideas not the messenger, get the contents not the box. It is important to get the benefits even things are not absolute truths
    • No need to discard the content of the whole book just because some studies are not replicating or some paragraphs were plagiarized
  • The meanings we give to places and things are in our mind, but we can use those effect to get things done

4. Reframe: Find a better perspective

  • Explore many different ways of looking at your situation, finding a perspective that you never considered before
    • Find a smarter strategy
    • Find a plan that excites you
    • Find peace
  • Looks pass the first reaction, consider other ways to looking at the situation and pick one that feels empowering or useful
  • Ask "What great about this?" in every challenging situation
  • When you ask "What great about this?" need to really brainstorm without judging those ideas. Get all ideas on to a paper then start evaluating them. During idea generation, don't go into evaluation mode

5. Adopt what works for you now

  • How do you know what is the best choice?
    • No choice is the best in itself, A choice becomes the best when you choose it
    • You take actions, letting go of other options. You commit to a path, to make it work
    • You do the work that make it a great choice
  • When making a change, you start by exploring. You go in different directions gather different information. At one point, you have to change to a leader from being an explorer.
    • Stop considering other viewpoints, stop changing the course. Pick the destination and cut off the other options
    • Explore once you reach the destination, until then keep making progress
  • Let yourself execute one plan of action and see it through the fruition
  • Discuss your plans with your friends and let them acknowledge your beliefs. Then it will feel like reality
  • The choices you make only for you, and only for now. In the future you can make different choices. Your choice will help you to become who you want to be, do what you want to do and be at peace
    • It improves your current actions, no need to justify to anyone else it's true
    • Taking actions will test your thoughts in reality
    • If you are not doing something damaging to you or the society, start immediately
  • You are your actions. Your actions are you. Your self-image doesn't matter as much