If you read Useful Not True, take it seriously, and apply it to your life, will you get the same benefit I got from five years of intensive leadership training?

Useful Not True author Derek Sivers has lived multiple lives as a musician, founder of CD Baby, TED Talk speaker, writer, and more. As an avid reader, Derek has collected extensive book notes for his website, covering a wide range of reading material, including works by Herb Cohen, Alison Gopnik, and William Zinsser, among others.

This context is important as we explore this short but impactful volume, because anyone who hasn’t previously been exposed to Derek’s writing is bound to be challenged by it. Derek is well-read, and when you’ve exposed yourself to fringe perspectives with an open mind, you will reach uncommon conclusions. And this is an exercise Derek seems to relish in.

But let’s start here: Few people question their beliefs. If they do, they don’t seriously question them. If they were told outright that their beliefs were untrue, they would resist the notion or wall up immediately, preventing further open-mindedness or exploration.

But this is exactly what Useful Not True proposes – that our beliefs aren’t necessarily true. This doesn’t mean they are bad or even wrong. In some cases, they may not even be factually incorrect.

But accepting that our beliefs aren’t necessarily true brings a powerful question to the fore, and that’s the point – does my belief support me in this very moment, in getting or accomplishing what I want?

If you’re honest with yourself, you can think back on times when your beliefs either proved useful or not.

Thus, useful, not true. This book encourages us to take a closer look at our beliefs, even our assumptions, and ask whether they are useful given what we’re facing in this moment. And this thesis has a further implication – we are all fully capable of adopting different beliefs at different times to our benefit, fluidly, if we choose to.

The Rarity of Critical Thinking

Conversations on what is true or isn’t true can be divisive. But I have found, through much experience, that inquisition into the nature of truth is a worthy exercise. And that is the path Useful Not True takes the reader down.

What I like most is that it sets a strong foundation for critical, independent thinking. Something harder to find than most people think.

If you don’t have a plan for your financial future, and one day hope or expect to win the lottery, then you are like most people I know.

If you pay your bills before paying yourself, you are like most people I know.

If you read the news, accept it at face value, and think it’s basically benevolent and truthful, you are like most people I know.

The examples could go on. The point is, if you applied critical, independent thinking to these matters, you would likely see them from a different perspective and act differently as a result. If this doesn’t describe you, then critical, independent thinking might not be part of your makeup yet (and that’s okay).

The question is whether it’s worth developing new mental frameworks. As an independent creator, entrepreneur, and community builder, my answer is an unequivocal “yes.”

But thinking differently is uncomfortable. So is the change that results from seeing the world through new eyes, not to mention living new truths. If maintaining the status quo is more in your comfort zone, then this book might not be for you.

Answering the Question from the Introduction

To me, Useful Not True summarizes much of what I learned in the intensive leadership training I undertook from 2018 to 2023 in Landmark Worldwide. As I was going through it, I came to see just how much we can all be held back by what we assume and believe about ourselves, others, circumstances, and the nature of truth.

Weirdly, one of the biggest benefits I got from the program was increased productivity, because I separated the useful thoughts from the other, incessant ones that were merely figments of the past or concerns about the future. That left me much more clear-headed to do what I needed to do in the moment.

Think of it this way – if your mind wasn’t constantly running with thoughts about things that already happened or things that haven’t happened yet, how much better do you think you’d be able to focus on your work?

I expand on this in my award-winning Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook.

In the same breath, it needs to be said that nothing is perfect, and I don’t put the training I got on a pedestal. Not only did it require considerable time and effort, but it was also, in my opinion, deviating from its purpose, highly disorganized, or poorly managed at times. I was sometimes faced with enduring grand stupidity, too.

The program relied very heavily on conversation/communication, which is fine, but when you don’t know what conversations to have with whom, your efforts suffer from a lack of intent and direction and remain mostly unfruitful.

But there is something distinct about Landmark graduates. They tend to make fewer assumptions, spend less time ruminating before acting, and learn to leave people touched, moved, and inspired in communication. They’re more effective at what they do. They also have new conversations, the kinds they’ve never had before, with people in their lives.

(Of course, this is a generalization – it’s not true across the board.)

Based on my experience, entrepreneurs, salespeople, and network marketers all have a great deal to gain from the programs Landmark offers, especially if they’re fearful of the actions they need to take and conversations they need to have to succeed in their fields. But the training can benefit anyone.

Another important caveat is that there are multiple weekend courses, 10-session seminars, and multi-month or multi-year programs in Landmark, and not everyone engages in the same amount of training. Results will vary, not just depending on the courses completed, but also on the individual.

Anyway, I’ve said enough about Landmark for now (it might be a good topic for another time), my point is…

There are similarities between Derek’s Useful Not True and Werner Erhard’s philosophy, which is what Landmarks’ programs were based on. And Erhard’s philosophy surely came from somewhere else (probably many places) too.

I think it is possible for you to get much of what I got from Landmark in Useful Not True. The question remains whether you will spend enough time in the thought space to seed, nurture, and facilitate independent thinking, and to build your competency in it.

Since Useful Not True is a short book, this will depend a lot on whether you act on it and continue to engage with other materials that keep the thought wheel turning after the fact.

Derek explains that Useful Not True is like a prologue to one of his other books, How to Live, so if you’re trying to figure out where to turn after Useful Not True, that is the most logical choice. Thankfully, Derek also points us toward many more books to explore at the end of Useful Not True.

As for How to Live, and the beautiful thing about it – spoiler alert – is that it presents many amazing ways to live, all of which can be useful, but none of which are necessarily true.

Either way, that is what I think I wanted to say about Useful Not True. It’s useful.

This page contains affiliate links.