
You don't have to be local - joeyespo
http://sivers.org/local
======
patio11
The words "pick your brain" are virtually never good ones to lead with, by the
way, because they turn off _many_ people who have useful things to say, in
addition to dsivers. (Close second: "Can you mentor me?") They suggest the
interpersonal equivalent of the planning meeting from heck, with no agenda, no
goals, and no way to safely declare failure and thereby avoid the next
meeting. If you want a specific thing, asking for it is better. If you do not
know what you want, a) strongly consider whether that problem will be
alleviated with another person using cycles on it or not and/or b) figure out
what you want, and how helping you get it helps them, prior to asking for
anything.

~~~
gregpilling
Interesting viewpoint on "pick your brain". As a 40-something business owner I
am always happy when someone less experienced at business wants to pick my
brain. I have told many people that if they buy me a beer they can ask
business questions all night. I have a few like minded (and aged) friends who
I meet with every thursday night at a local pub. We always welcome people to
meet with us - the only condition is that they have to be running a small
business or trying to start one.

So for me personally I enjoy having my brain picked or mentoring someone. Of
course, dsivers seemed to go a little overboard with 400 meetings in two years
which would be 4 per week roughly. Compare that to the once per month I do it
for perspective. To each their own of course.

~~~
tocomment
(side note: there's a lot of lorem ipsum text on your website) (I was trying
to find your location to get in on a mentoring beer session :-)

~~~
gregpilling
you can email me: gregpilling@gmail.com

our website was hacked, and while it gets 200 visits a day (hardly anything),
keeping up with orders has been more important than fixing lorem ipsum on the
new site.

------
edw519
I prefer to be global with peers and local with customers.

In person, I rarely meet like minded souls with whom I can have intimate
technical discussions, but on-line it's easy (thank you Hacker News friends).

But with customers, I've never found a good substitute for being there with
them. I want to see everything they're doing, listen to them bitch, and feel
their pain. I want to suffer with them during the day and celebrate with them
over beers at night. You just can't do that the same way on-line.

~~~
biscarch
I've found in the past, for on-premise consulting, that I'm being paid to
consult/develop, but being used as a psychiatric sounding board. I don't give
advice I'm not qualified for, but being there under the guise of development
and just listening seems to be a worthy use of my time (and their money) for
some clients.

I can get more work done remote, but there's a greater personal connection
locally. It's interesting what a consulting gig can turn into.

------
sivers
P.S. to my Hacker News peers : This is a one reason why I decided not to live
in the SF/Bay area. So many people so like me that I felt pulled into all the
in-person kind of stuff. I feel more productive & more balanced when living in
a more remote place.

~~~
stickhandle
I find this conflicting ... Get away so that you're not surrounded by people
the same as you. Then, once there, you don't get to know any of these
different people. At least not deeply enough to call friends. Maybe this is
good work productivity advice, but I think this is bad life advice.

~~~
rweba
He prefers to interact with many people at a distance(email, blog posts, phone
calls, occasional visits etc.) rather than many people face to face (lunch
meetings, networking events etc.)

It is just a matter of personal preference, being very local might be the
right thing for other people.

------
graue
I can't imagine living in a place for three years and not making _any_
friends.

For me, regular in-person contact with friends is essential to feeling
motivated and connected with the world. They don't have to be close friends,
and they don't need to share my career or understand the work I do as a web
developer. Most of the programmer friends I would sling code with on a weekend
project are global — scattered across the world. Whereas, many of the friends
I hang out with the most locally use feature phones, have old or no computers,
and think Twitter is pointless.

But that doesn't matter because what I need them for is to sit down and have a
good conversation. Or play a game of table tennis. Or ride our bikes out to
the suburbs and back. If I don't get these kinds of outlets, a week spent
sitting down and coding leaves me feeling strangely unphysical, unhinged from
the world around me.

I've grappled with the local/global issue because my life does feel like a
duality, where local (mostly offline) and global (online) are separate. I'm
not sure how to resolve that (maybe living somewhere with more early adopters
of tech would help). But Derek's solution is an extreme one. You don't have to
be exclusively local or global.

~~~
SatvikBeri
One thing that makes a BIG difference is how much you travel. In my case, I've
spent less than half of my weekends at home during the last year. For me,
having local friends isn't super important because one way or another, I'll
end up seeing my close friends several times. Plus, I have yet to live in the
same city for more than a year since college.

If Derek's travel situation is similar, I can see why he wouldn't care too
much about having local friends.

Edit: this seems to be the case. From one of his comments below: "Home was the
place that I would just work. I was going to so many conferences and such,
that all my social time was out of town."

------
stickhandle
I don't know the author, but my initial take is: loner, work-a-holic, egotist.
None of that is meant as an insult. To "socialize" in a local sense doesn't
need to mean you meet "with over 400 people, one-on-one, went to every
conference and get-together, and said yes to every request". It means making
friends: the kind that build decks together (with free beer); go bowling,
watch the big game together at the pub instead of at home, go for a hike with
the kids, meet up at the coffee shop every Thursday morning, and simply help
and grow together. Its not work. Its natural. Fun. Community. The author is
missing out.

~~~
icebraining
<https://sivers.org/friends>

~~~
stickhandle
I saw the link to friends in the article. I think that page is a good idea.
But I also read that in the 3 yrs in Woodstock - he "never met anyone". In the
3 yrs in Portland - "some dear and deep friends (made) worldwide, but none in
Portland". I'm certain there were great folks in both places that could have
been great friends that changed the authors life for the better.
Unfortunately, these folks were local and probably provided little support for
either cd baby or host baby.

~~~
sivers
Home was the place that I would just work. I was going to so many conferences
and such, that all my social time was out of town.

~~~
stickhandle
No disrespect intended, Derek. I got a different message from your post - one
that glorifies isolation to intimacy because intimacy is hard(er). Balance is
a passionate mantra for me. Peace.

------
fwr
Let's eliminate any social interactions to pursue maximum effectiveness, then
we can finally focus on the things that matter - like programming! Beep, boop.

~~~
guylhem
I think you're missing the article point. If some social interactions bring
you nothing, then you should remove them from your life !

Quoting Nassim Taleb : "If someone is a drag on me, I cut them out. If someone
lifts me up, I bring them closer. Nobody is sacred here. When the plane is
going down, put the oxygen mask on your face first. Family, friends, people I
love – I always try to be there for them and help. But I don’t get close to
anyone bringing me down. This rule can’t be broken. Energy leaks out of you if
someone is draining you. And I never owe anyone an explanation. Explaining is
draining."

[http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-be-the-
luckiest-...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-be-the-luckiest-guy-
on-the-planet-in-4-easy-steps/)

~~~
pilgrim689
"If someone is a drag on me, I cut them out. If someone lifts me up, I bring
them closer. "

That is incredibly selfish. Sometimes the person doing the lifting is the one
being "brought down", so you're essentially depending on the fact that people
are less selfish than you for this to work. Like anything taken to the
extreme, this extreme individualism can only be harmful.

~~~
ams6110
No, you are simply associating with people who compliment your own interests
(and presumably vice-versa). Not everyone can be friends with everyone. Trying
to make relationship "work" when the individuals are fundamentally
incompatible is the source of much unhappiness.

~~~
pilgrim689
I think the problem is that we're all interpreting this differently... I'm not
saying you should force relationships at all. I'm saying cutting someone off
just because they're going through a rough patch is no way to treat a human.
You can afford to slow down your life a bit to help out a loved one.

~~~
c0riander
I don't think the quote is advocating cutting out people who are going through
a negative time, just those who are negative to YOU.

There's a difference between supporting someone through their difficulty and
someone who is not supporting you, whether that means (consciously or
unconsciously) belittling, undermining, or dismissing you or your ideas, or
just not meshing well or productively with you.

------
tibbon
Yet, not matter how 'cool' remote working seems, the majority of companies (YC
ones included/especially) won't seem to entertain anyone that isn't local.

The number of companies that I find who are willing to allow remote work are
the exception, not the norm. The number who will accept remote people on the
business side of things are even lower.

~~~
adrianhoward
_The number of companies that I find who are willing to allow remote work are
the exception, not the norm. The number who will accept remote people on the
business side of things are even lower._

One reason is that there is quite a lot of evidence that, all other things
being equal, it's considerably less efficient than co-located teams - see
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4800412> for some references.

------
gsk
Don't know if Derek has children. They sure make you intensely local. While
raising a family, if you have a company/product that is aimed globally as
well, then you don't have much of a choice in focussing globally if you are to
succeed. The choice is not necessarily so stark for others as it is for Derek.
I do understand his personal preference and that's perfectly fine.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Children could be local while you would still stay global.

Children could be quite global too - Internet and Internet games in particular
are appealing for children too.

------
tumult
Nice article.

Coincidental timing for me. I'm Singapore for a few weeks, and even though
I've spent months here in the past and have a long-term visa, I have almost no
local friends here. I feel like I should feel guilty about it. But I don't
feel guilty about it, except in an abstract way.

I spend most of my time coding and working on music. And eating Thai food.

~~~
jarek
> And eating Thai food.

Get acquainted with Malaysian/Singaporean while you're there too.

~~~
ramidarigaz
Also, the dum byriani (sp?) and various forms of masala in little India are
freaking amazing.

------
guylhem
There are many great insights, but I wonder how appliable they are in the real
life.

I mean, I especially loved the answer based on the idea of "not favoring
anyone", when the author was asked about what he did for the local market.

But this requires some "enlightenment" - as the author said, he lived in many
places, so he can now relate to human being as equals - wherever they come
from or live.

It seems to me it is just wishful thinking to believe most people - or just a
significant enough mass - will be able to think like this.

Most people are lost in their own thoughts and community. They just can't
think global, and certainly don't want to.

They just care about the ones they know - and cronyism is just an artifact.
It's the same story again an again - dozens of people dying is the news, but
having a deep cut in your little finger is a tragedy.

~~~
derefr
I feel like I think globally. I didn't get there by living in many places, or
"pursuing enlightenment" in any other way; I just lived in the middle of
nowhere (not particularly by choice). The internet _was_ my local community. I
feel like there are a lot more "global-thinking" people like me (who have no
locale), than people who got to be that way like Mr. Sivers did (who have too
many).

------
b1daly
It made me reflect on how different people are. If someone like Mr. Sivers has
found a way for himself to be happy and productive, more power to him. CD Baby
alone has done a huge amount for others.

------
adrianhoward
I certainly know people who seem very local - or very global. But I think that
it's a false dichotomy to think that there's only those two groups.

For example I'm pretty mixed. I have a lot of local connections _and_ a lot of
global ones. I personally feel energised and enthusiastic about both at
different times. There have been times when I've been more "local". There have
been times when I've been more "global".

In fact I generally get worried when I see statements like this:

 _One will feel more natural to you. Like your tendency to be an introvert vs
extrovert, or conservative vs liberal, these base world-views will shape your
preferences for being local-focused or global-focused._

Because - well - they're not true. Some people change. In the long term and
the short term. I know folk who've gone left-to-right politically over the
years (and vice versa). The introvert/extrovert divide is notoriously context
dependent for many people. From my own experience I've been "local" and some
points in my live, "global" in others and now very happy getting energy from
both.

Not trying to say that any of these groups are better or worse than any other
- but there's more than the two extremes. Not everybody stays the same. There
isn't a problem with that.

Do what the OP did and _try_ different options. If you don't like it or it
doesn't work for you - stop and do something else. But don't just say "I'm
local" and set your life course from there on. Things might change. Keep
you're eye out for that.

------
eru
Oh, just as I was moving to Singapore (where Derek now lives).

But Derek has been incredible helpful more than once in my life already. He is
an example to follow.

------
ishbits
This kinda hit home for me. I live in the city I grew up in yet hardly have
any friends here. I work remotely with people around the world and my best
friends are thousands of miles away and we meet up any various places around
the world.

Definitely feeling the need to strike a balance.

------
kremdela
Great article. After having lived most of my life in urban areas, I married a
great woman who has a very rural job and we live in an incredibly small town.
I'm an introvert and solo entrepreneur, but had found that I thrived via in-
person collaboration at a co-working space or via meetups.

What I've been struck by is the difficulty in shifting. Maybe I'm not looking
in the right places online, but I've found it difficult to make new friends on
the internet, or get the same sense of camaraderie as in-person contact.

Anyone have any advice on how to break the ice and make "internet friends" ?

------
kephra
My mix is that I sell global, but buy local when possible, care for local
friendships, talk to neighbors, and I am a member of several clubs. But thats
perhaps a common Hanseatic culture.

