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00:01:34.640 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about upgrading
00:01:42.160 | your life, money, and travel.
00:01:44.040 | I'm Chris Hutchins, and I am excited you're here today.
00:01:46.960 | For a while, I've been fascinated by minimalism and I knew I wanted to do an
00:01:51.680 | episode about it.
00:01:52.440 | While I don't think I'm anywhere close to being a hoarder, I definitely
00:01:56.320 | struggle with getting rid of things that I might need or want to use one day.
00:01:59.600 | Well, a few weeks ago, I got connected with Joshua Becker and I knew that our
00:02:04.080 | conversation would make for a great episode.
00:02:06.640 | For those of you who don't know him, he's the founder of Becoming Minimalist, a
00:02:10.800 | website that's helped inspired millions of visitors around the world.
00:02:14.880 | He's also the best-selling author of The More of Less, The Minimalist Home, and
00:02:20.000 | most recently, Things That Matter, Overcoming Distractions to Pursue a More
00:02:24.560 | Meaningful Life.
00:02:25.840 | It just came out last week, and it's a fantastic read.
00:02:29.200 | In our conversation, we'll talk about what most people get wrong about
00:02:33.520 | minimalism, why owning less can bring more meaning to life, ways to get started
00:02:38.560 | without jumping straight into the deep end, and the big distractions outside of
00:02:43.200 | just stuff that get in the way of focusing on the things that matter in life.
00:02:47.760 | So let's jump in.
00:02:49.040 | Joshua, thank you for being here.
00:02:52.320 | Well, thank you for having me here.
00:02:54.480 | It's a pleasure.
00:02:56.080 | So I'm going to jump right in.
00:02:58.080 | What do you think most people get wrong when they think about minimalism?
00:03:03.440 | Well, I've been writing about minimalism for 13 years or so, and I think when I
00:03:09.040 | first started, the misconceptions were this was going to be a barren, empty...
00:03:14.480 | I think we kind of shaken that misconception quite a bit.
00:03:18.000 | The misconception that I fight against the most is that minimalism is about
00:03:25.600 | checking out of life.
00:03:27.280 | That minimalism is about quitting my job as soon as I possibly can, not
00:03:31.680 | contributing anything to the world, and just laying on a beach for the rest of
00:03:36.160 | my life.
00:03:36.800 | In my mind, minimalism is about removing physical distractions, removing
00:03:43.040 | possessions so that I can live a bigger life that accomplishes more good for the
00:03:48.320 | world than if I was carrying around a bunch of stuff that I didn't need.
00:03:51.280 | Why is it so important, especially right now, for people to think this way?
00:03:56.720 | Because never at any point in human history have human beings owned as much
00:04:02.240 | stuff as we do now.
00:04:03.600 | Things are cheaper than ever.
00:04:05.840 | Things are more accessible and more available.
00:04:09.120 | And with a click of a button, I can get things delivered to my home in an hour.
00:04:13.600 | The stats are pretty fascinating.
00:04:15.120 | The average American home has tripled in size in the last 50 years and still 10%
00:04:20.240 | of Americans rent off-site storage.
00:04:22.560 | The LA Times one time printed that the average American home has 300,000 items
00:04:27.440 | inside of it, and I think the more you accumulate, then the more of a physical
00:04:35.120 | burden, the more of a mental burden, just the more time all of our things take
00:04:39.680 | from us.
00:04:40.240 | I think it's probably more important than ever to be intentional about the
00:04:43.520 | things we're allowing into our homes and lives.
00:04:46.400 | I'm thinking as you say that, "Gosh, how many things are in my house?"
00:04:50.960 | I don't even know if I want to know the answer.
00:04:52.560 | But you write a lot about the how of decluttering and minimization.
00:04:56.960 | But it seems like the why, the internal work you have to do is almost more or
00:05:02.800 | maybe as much as important.
00:05:04.240 | Is that true?
00:05:05.760 | Yeah.
00:05:06.160 | Certainly the how.
00:05:07.680 | Owning less is better than thinking about owning less.
00:05:11.120 | So it's one thing to be introduced to the idea, to be drawn to the idea of
00:05:16.400 | removing distractions.
00:05:17.600 | It's something completely different to actually begin walking down that road.
00:05:21.360 | Whenever I help people go through this process, the first thing that I always
00:05:26.560 | have people do is sit down and answer this question, "I desire to own less so
00:05:33.840 | that I can blank."
00:05:36.880 | You fill in the blank however you want.
00:05:39.760 | What is the goal?
00:05:41.840 | What is the purpose?
00:05:42.720 | For me, it was a Saturday morning, cleaning out my garage while I wish I was
00:05:47.440 | playing with my son.
00:05:48.560 | I could just see how all the things I owned were distracting me and taking me
00:05:53.440 | away from spending time with my family.
00:05:55.680 | I literally just want to spend more time with my family.
00:05:58.560 | But other people, they want to own less so you can travel more or you can
00:06:03.280 | retire early or get out of debt or there's environmental reasons behind
00:06:08.800 | your pursuit.
00:06:09.600 | But nailing the why I think is pretty important because the goal of
00:06:14.880 | minimalism is never just to own the fewest amount of things as possible.
00:06:19.760 | Minimalism is always just a means to an end of some sort.
00:06:24.560 | And so, knowing that, number one, I think provides the motivation and the
00:06:28.400 | momentum.
00:06:29.040 | For most people, decluttering their possessions is hard work, requires
00:06:33.120 | physical work and emotional work and mental work.
00:06:36.320 | So, I think having that goal, knowing why they want to do it is helpful.
00:06:40.080 | When I wrote my first book, The More of Less, I learned a little bit about
00:06:44.960 | publishing pretty early on.
00:06:46.320 | We met in the Denver airport for lunch with some of the vice presidents and
00:06:51.920 | publishers and editors and they asked me the question, "What do you want to
00:06:55.280 | name the book?"
00:06:55.920 | And I said, "Well, I thought I'd name the book Becoming Minimalist".
00:06:59.840 | And she said, "Well, you can't name the book Becoming Minimalist".
00:07:03.840 | And I said, "Oh, I can't?"
00:07:07.840 | And she said, "No, Becoming Minimalist is the process that gets you somewhere".
00:07:14.080 | Like what is the promise of minimalism?
00:07:17.040 | That's the title of your book, not the process, make it the promise.
00:07:21.760 | I like it.
00:07:22.240 | The promise of The More of Less.
00:07:24.240 | The More of Less, Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own was the
00:07:27.520 | first book and that then became the title.
00:07:29.280 | That's the promise, right?
00:07:30.320 | I don't think anyone's desire in life is just to own as much stuff as they
00:07:33.600 | possibly can.
00:07:34.400 | We certainly have bigger dreams for our lives than that.
00:07:36.560 | Of course.
00:07:38.160 | When it comes to the how, what are the hacks to actually do that?
00:07:41.440 | So, let's say I've decided, okay, now I don't want a lot of stuff.
00:07:44.800 | Do you have any advice to someone who's gone through the process to find their
00:07:48.800 | why?
00:07:49.600 | Do they do it gradually or all at once?
00:07:51.760 | There are some people who can do it all in a weekend.
00:07:54.480 | I know a friend who, as soon as he heard about minimalism, rented a dumpster and
00:07:59.200 | was like done by the end of the day.
00:08:01.200 | But that's a pretty small percentage of people.
00:08:04.320 | Although if you can pull it off and if that's your type of personality, then
00:08:08.000 | it's certainly better than taking six or nine months to declutter your home.
00:08:11.360 | But if you're married and you got two kids and you got 15 years of stuff in
00:08:16.000 | your home, then it probably takes a little more time and a little more effort.
00:08:19.040 | The strategy that I use, the method that I have found to be the most helpful for
00:08:23.920 | the most number of people is to work through your home easiest to hardest,
00:08:30.400 | starting with the most lived in areas.
00:08:33.760 | So, some folks would say category by category, but I think room by room.
00:08:38.880 | And don't fall into the trap of starting minimizing possessions by going to the
00:08:48.560 | hardest room that you'll ever have to complete.
00:08:51.760 | Because a lot of people hear about decluttering and they're like that's right,
00:08:55.120 | I got to go through my garage, I got to go through my attic or the basement.
00:08:58.800 | And then you go spend an hour and a half in the basement and you don't see any
00:09:04.480 | progress at the end of the day and you feel frustrated, throw up your hands and
00:09:08.480 | give up, this is never going to work for me.
00:09:10.160 | But you could go spend 15 minutes in your car and totally change the inside of your
00:09:18.800 | car the very next time you get in it.
00:09:20.640 | Or you could spend an hour and a half in your living room or your bedroom or your
00:09:24.880 | bathroom and you could notice a change by the end of the day.
00:09:29.600 | And that mental movement of seeing progress and seeing that you're making
00:09:33.840 | changes then motivates you to go tackle the next space and the next space and the
00:09:38.160 | next space.
00:09:38.800 | So, easiest to hardest, most lived in areas first.
00:09:41.680 | And by that I mean, maybe the guest bedroom is the easiest thing for you to
00:09:45.200 | declutter in your home, but you're never in the guest bedroom, so you never see
00:09:49.280 | the progress, you never feel like you're making any changes.
00:09:52.640 | So, I would tell people to go start in their car, just take everything out of
00:09:56.080 | your car that you don't need.
00:09:57.680 | The next time you get in your car, see how it makes you feel.
00:09:59.920 | I can guarantee you'll love it a lot more than having the empty water bottle
00:10:04.400 | rolling around in the back seat the whole time.
00:10:06.400 | I like that.
00:10:07.840 | I will take the car on as a project.
00:10:09.920 | There you go.
00:10:10.480 | This weekend.
00:10:11.120 | I've heard you talk about the concept of staging your home for living.
00:10:15.520 | I heard you say the final moments of owning your home is when you finally try to
00:10:19.040 | make it look exactly right.
00:10:20.400 | And some of the principles of staging you've applied to staging your home for
00:10:25.040 | living.
00:10:25.920 | Is that something you could talk about a little bit and walk people through that
00:10:28.960 | mindset change?
00:10:29.840 | Yeah.
00:10:31.040 | I've moved several times in my life and with each of the times, literally you're
00:10:35.920 | like doing all the things in your home that you wanted to do all along and your
00:10:43.680 | home is like the best place that you've ever had it since the day you moved in,
00:10:47.360 | the day you move out.
00:10:48.560 | And so, trying to incorporate some of those thinkings of not always major
00:10:54.000 | renovations, but if you got a leaky sink, like you got to fix it at some point.
00:10:58.400 | So, why not just fix it now?
00:11:00.160 | So, you don't have a leaky sink because although the housing market is a little
00:11:04.240 | bit different these days, but typically you're going to have to fix the sink
00:11:07.360 | before you're going to move out anyway.
00:11:08.640 | So, you might as well do it.
00:11:09.760 | The reason I have this phrasing and I like to talk about this is one of the
00:11:14.960 | things that almost every realtor will have you do before you go sell your house
00:11:19.760 | is take out a third or two thirds of the possessions in it.
00:11:24.240 | Like literally tell you to go rent a storage unit and just get all this stuff
00:11:29.280 | out of the house so it feels more peaceful and it feels more calm and it
00:11:34.240 | feels more spacious for when someone is going through it.
00:11:37.200 | I think that we need to apply the same things to the way we live in our homes today.
00:11:40.880 | I talk a lot about home in The Minimalist Home, that's the second book.
00:11:45.360 | Like what is the purpose of home anyway?
00:11:47.840 | I remember my editor asked me that while we were writing the book.
00:11:50.960 | He said "Joshua, what is the purpose of home?"
00:11:53.760 | and I thought that is a good question.
00:11:57.040 | I don't think most of us ever sit down and really ask what is the goal of my home
00:12:02.000 | and just talking it through with them, there's the part of home should be a
00:12:06.560 | place where I feel accepted and loved, it should be like a respite from the crazy
00:12:11.600 | world out there, it should be a place that helps me find calm and peace rather
00:12:16.400 | than add stress to my life, but the goal of home isn't to stay there forever.
00:12:23.200 | I don't want my home to be calm so that I can just stay in my home for the rest
00:12:27.680 | of my life.
00:12:28.320 | I want home to be a place where I can rest so that I can go live my best life
00:12:33.520 | out in the world, accomplishing the most good for the most number of people.
00:12:38.000 | So, how do I create a space that accomplishes that both as a port for my
00:12:44.000 | ship but also a launch pad to go out into the world?
00:12:47.040 | And not just for me and my spouse, but my kids as well.
00:12:50.320 | Has any of the changes in the last few years from the pandemic and working from
00:12:57.040 | home changed any perspectives you had on your home and what you should do and how
00:13:01.920 | you should think about it now that lots of people ended up working from home and
00:13:06.000 | maybe some will forever?
00:13:07.520 | My overriding thought of going into the pandemic back two years ago now was I'm
00:13:16.320 | glad I found minimalism 12 years ago.
00:13:20.880 | I'm glad that I had done the work of creating a home that was calm and peaceful,
00:13:28.960 | a home that I wanted to be in, a home that wasn't adding stress to my life.
00:13:33.040 | Not to mention, I felt like I had saved a lot of money by pursuing minimalism and
00:13:38.640 | buying less stuff.
00:13:40.000 | I felt freer, I felt less tied down to the place that I was confined to be in and
00:13:47.280 | I think some people early on were like "boy, I bet you're regretting becoming a
00:13:51.440 | minimalist now that you're stuck inside your home" and I'm like "no, just the
00:13:56.240 | opposite".
00:13:56.800 | Like I feel free, like I feel like we could get up and move if we needed to.
00:14:01.920 | I felt like I had saved up some money along the ways.
00:14:05.120 | It's not that my home is empty, there's still things to do in my home.
00:14:08.960 | I thought I brought a lot of intentionality into my life over the last 10 years
00:14:12.720 | about how I spent my time and certainly I think the pandemic upended a lot of that
00:14:17.600 | in a lot of ways and a lot of unhealthy habits that emerged, but I thought that I
00:14:21.760 | was in a much better place to handle those and overcome them once the world slowly
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00:16:57.360 | You mentioned you started this a little over a decade ago.
00:17:00.120 | Were you always just the kind of person who didn't care about stuff and your garage was
00:17:05.280 | empty?
00:17:06.280 | You didn't buy stuff all the time and that this was easy?
00:17:08.440 | Or how was the transition for you at the kind of genesis of your approach to minimalism?
00:17:13.360 | It wasn't something that I started out doing.
00:17:15.200 | I'd been married 10 years.
00:17:16.840 | My son was five and my daughter was two at the time where I was introduced to minimalism.
00:17:22.360 | Pretty typical, middle-class, suburban lifestyle.
00:17:26.920 | I always tell the story how we had gotten three pretty significant pay increases over
00:17:31.880 | those first 10 years of marriage and yet, for some reason, we're never able to get ahead
00:17:37.280 | financially.
00:17:38.680 | It always seemed like, well, now that I got that pay raise, I should be able to save everything
00:17:44.640 | new that was coming into my life, but it never worked out that way.
00:17:48.280 | It seemed like the more money came in, the more money went out.
00:17:51.880 | And then it wasn't until - yeah, my son was five, my daughter was two and literally on
00:17:57.160 | a Saturday morning, we were living in Vermont at the time and just our typical spring cleaning,
00:18:03.640 | I went out to clean the garage and it ended up just taking hours of organizing stuff and
00:18:09.760 | getting rid of stuff and cleaning things out and my son was in the backyard asking me to
00:18:15.120 | come play and I kept pushing him off.
00:18:17.320 | Just this constant "no, no, one more minute, I'm almost done, I'm almost done, we'll play.
00:18:21.080 | We'll play as soon as I'm done".
00:18:23.120 | And it was my neighbor who introduced me to minimalism as I think I was complaining a
00:18:27.080 | little bit about how much effort had gone into the garage.
00:18:30.920 | She says "you know, that's why my daughter's a minimalist, she keeps telling me I don't
00:18:34.120 | need to own all this stuff".
00:18:35.960 | Looking at the pile of things in my driveway and there's my son swinging alone on the swing
00:18:40.520 | set in the backyard and suddenly realized all the things I owned weren't making me happy,
00:18:46.680 | which we would all say but even more, all those things were distracting me and taking
00:18:51.440 | me away from the thing that did bring me happiness and joy and meaning and life and so, that
00:18:56.480 | was it.
00:18:57.480 | Was it difficult for me?
00:18:58.800 | No, it wasn't.
00:18:59.800 | I saw the bigger picture right away.
00:19:01.840 | I could see pretty clearly how owning less stuff would free me up to invest my life in
00:19:06.480 | things that actually matter.
00:19:07.680 | It took about six or nine months, so there was certainly effort that had to go into it
00:19:12.840 | and tough decisions that needed to be made but I certainly wasn't drug into the lifestyle
00:19:18.320 | kicking and screaming.
00:19:19.320 | I was pretty excited about the opportunity right away.
00:19:22.200 | I imagine most people listening are thinking "I'm on board, I've already thought for the
00:19:26.400 | last 10 minutes about what my why is".
00:19:29.760 | But I feel like when the rubber hits the road and you're like "Okay, now I got to start
00:19:33.240 | getting rid of things", I can already run through my head the story I'd have for almost
00:19:37.800 | everything that I probably should get rid of and haven't.
00:19:41.920 | And in my particular life, there's one thing that between my wife and I is like this.
00:19:46.440 | She's much more the "throw everything away" or "give it away" or "we don't need this".
00:19:50.680 | And I have maybe a common attitude of like "Well, one day, what if we want this thing?"
00:19:56.080 | And the one that comes to mind every time is someone gave us a raclette, just like a
00:20:01.360 | little grill on the top and it heats up cheese and you'd use it when you have your friends
00:20:04.820 | over for dinner.
00:20:05.920 | And we have this thing and in 10 years, we've maybe used it once.
00:20:10.840 | And she would make the argument "If we don't use this more than that, it's got to go".
00:20:15.840 | And I'm like "Well, we have the room in the house and maybe one day we'll need it.
00:20:19.640 | I'm going to be really bummed when I say we should do this one time and we don't have
00:20:22.880 | it.
00:20:23.880 | Then what do I do?
00:20:24.880 | Do I buy it?
00:20:25.880 | Like, I imagine I'm not the only person that has this challenge of like "I might want this
00:20:29.960 | thing one day, so I shouldn't get rid of it".
00:20:32.320 | Well, this specific one, heating up cheese, you are the first one ever, by the way.
00:20:37.120 | I don't even know what this is.
00:20:38.520 | There's no other way to heat up cheese except for this one little tool.
00:20:42.040 | It's a device you would put on the table to eat with people and cook food together versus
00:20:47.100 | something you'd use in the pantry.
00:20:48.840 | But it could very easily be a fondue set.
00:20:52.040 | So we could pretend it's a fondue set.
00:20:54.280 | Got it.
00:20:55.280 | This would be a classic example of "I'm in for owning less and my mind races to the hardest
00:21:04.560 | thing in my home that I would ever have to get rid of".
00:21:09.600 | And I don't want to shirk the responsibility of this question here, but honestly, what
00:21:13.760 | I would tell you, what I would tell anyone else is I would say "Don't start by getting
00:21:19.180 | rid of the hardest thing in your home that you would ever have to get rid of".
00:21:25.080 | I just did an interview earlier with someone who had like a Pringles can that they got
00:21:32.020 | from their grandfather who taught them how to invest money and this was where he saved
00:21:36.780 | his money.
00:21:37.780 | I'm like "Well, you don't start by getting rid of the Pringles can, let's just find some
00:21:42.800 | things in your home that you know you don't need, you know you don't use, maybe you have
00:21:47.840 | duplicates of the item, maybe you have something else that could accomplish the exact same
00:21:53.200 | thing, maybe it's something that was from a different season of life that you no longer
00:21:57.000 | use anymore, like let's find easier wins, let's make quicker progress and then start
00:22:03.760 | noticing how owning less frees up your life for bigger and better things and just notice
00:22:12.440 | the change that's taking place in what happens when you walk in your home, how much less
00:22:17.520 | time you have to spend cleaning or organizing, how much money you're saving by not buying
00:22:23.000 | stuff that you don't need, how much more life is enjoyable when everything you own is your
00:22:29.320 | favorite of something rather than a closet full of clothes that you only wear 20% of
00:22:35.160 | them anyway.
00:22:36.240 | Like start noticing some of those benefits and then when you get to the fondue set, you'll
00:22:42.200 | be in a better place and maybe you've decluttered a lot more and now having people over is something
00:22:49.520 | that's becoming more important to you and your home is cleaner and so, it's easier to
00:22:54.000 | do and you're like "No, showing hospitality and having people over is an important value
00:22:58.640 | to us and this fondue set allows us to do that" and so, you're going to keep it or maybe
00:23:03.880 | you're going to be like "You know what?
00:23:05.560 | This is kind of stupid that I was holding on to this thing and now that I think about
00:23:10.640 | it, I do have a friend and I could borrow his if I desperately needed it at some point
00:23:14.860 | in the future".
00:23:16.460 | What you just said about borrowing something comes to mind with the most common objection
00:23:21.120 | I would think of going through my house.
00:23:22.880 | There are a lot of things that I don't actually have an attachment to, but I think in the
00:23:28.440 | back of my mind "Well, one day what if I need this thing, a basketball.
00:23:31.520 | It's like I own a basketball.
00:23:33.360 | I don't play basketball a lot, but I know there's a park down the street with a basketball.
00:23:37.020 | If I wanted to play basketball one day, I don't really want to go buy a basketball".
00:23:40.520 | So what about when it's not that it's an emotional attachment?
00:23:44.080 | It's not a hard thing to get rid of, but it's just something that you think "Well, one day
00:23:48.520 | I might need this and I don't want to buy it then, so I want to keep it".
00:23:52.820 | One option you just gave which is maybe someone you know has one to borrow, is there anything
00:23:56.820 | else to help people get over that hurdle of "I might need this someday"?
00:24:00.880 | Yeah.
00:24:01.880 | I mean, there's just some math that we can do in our heads like "What are the probabilities
00:24:06.160 | of me needing a basketball?
00:24:08.640 | How hard would it be to replace?
00:24:10.520 | How much really would it cost if I needed to replace it?
00:24:13.720 | What is my financial situation if that was required?"
00:24:17.000 | The question we typically ask ourselves is "Yeah, but what if I need it someday?"
00:24:21.440 | And I always think there's another side to that question.
00:24:26.400 | And the other side of that question is "What if I hold on to everything for the rest of
00:24:31.840 | my life and never end up using it?"
00:24:34.720 | There's more than just a financial cost to the things that we buy and the things that
00:24:41.880 | we own.
00:24:42.880 | Like everything we own takes up physical space in our home and it takes up mental space in
00:24:47.760 | our mind.
00:24:48.760 | Randy Alcorn says "Every increased possession adds increased anxiety onto our lives".
00:24:53.680 | Even if it's just like a little bit in the back of your head "Oh yeah, I've got that
00:24:57.120 | basketball, I gotta decide what I'm gonna do with it at some point".
00:25:01.960 | Once we start making these changes, maybe there's some kid down the street who could
00:25:06.280 | be using that basketball every single day if he just knew that there was one out there.
00:25:11.040 | And so, there's a cost to holding on to things that we don't always consider.
00:25:15.600 | I'll share a story that goes in the positive for my clutter lifestyle which I wouldn't
00:25:20.600 | say I have necessarily, but we got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved and we moved
00:25:25.780 | into a house that had a lot of storage in the garage and we realized we maybe didn't
00:25:28.640 | need all of it.
00:25:30.180 | And so, by getting rid of a lot of the storage in the garage, we thought "Wow, we actually
00:25:33.760 | have enough room here that we could put a spin bike in the garage and now we could exercise
00:25:38.440 | more".
00:25:39.440 | And so, for us, getting rid of some stuff enabled us to use the space differently.
00:25:44.200 | In a weird way, it almost like gave us an extra room in our house.
00:25:47.800 | So, I'll just share that as something that for us worked to our advantage to getting
00:25:52.440 | rid of stuff.
00:25:53.440 | Do I have a ways to go?
00:25:54.440 | I'm sure.
00:25:55.440 | This is another struggle I come to.
00:25:57.360 | I know you have a perspective on this is "Gosh, I have this thing.
00:26:00.920 | I could probably sell this thing on eBay and it's worth more than zero.
00:26:05.360 | So I should probably make sure that I sell it."
00:26:07.280 | But the overhead and actually selling something is really high and I don't want to go hire
00:26:12.400 | someone at a sell it again store because now they're gonna take 20% and I'm perfectly capable.
00:26:17.880 | And so, 6 years later, I still have this iPhone that now is worth $50.
00:26:21.840 | It used to be worth a few hundred dollars and had I just either given it away or sold
00:26:25.840 | it at the time, it would have been a better outcome.
00:26:28.160 | But the overhead of dealing with it meant that it just piled up.
00:26:32.160 | Yeah.
00:26:33.160 | What do you tell people who are trying to optimize "I have all this stuff, I'm down
00:26:36.840 | to get rid of it.
00:26:37.840 | I've gotten over it emotionally, but I want to sell it and that takes up so much overhead"?
00:26:41.680 | Yeah.
00:26:42.680 | Generosity brings benefits into our lives that money doesn't.
00:26:48.840 | And if the question is "should I be donating all these things or should I be trying to
00:26:55.360 | sell everything?"
00:26:56.960 | My advice is unless you desperately need the money, just donate the stuff.
00:27:03.680 | Find a local charity that's supporting a problem that you want to solve in the world, if it's
00:27:08.960 | homelessness or refugee resettlement or battered women's clinic or foster children in the system,
00:27:15.800 | there's a benefit that comes to just donating some of that stuff.
00:27:19.300 | If you're trying to declutter a lot of stuff, then selling everything just adds time and
00:27:26.240 | energy and stress to an already pretty difficult process.
00:27:31.200 | And we don't typically make nearly as much money as we think we're going to.
00:27:36.200 | There's a time and a space if you're getting rid of something really valuable or something
00:27:41.600 | really big and you don't have a truck to haul it away, but if you don't desperately need
00:27:46.360 | the money already, I think it's better just to donate.
00:27:49.480 | I actually find that when you start donating things, it tends to almost prompt more and
00:27:55.320 | more minimizing of things as opposed to trying to sell it.
00:27:59.320 | So, like when we started, my son was five, my daughter was two, we were done having children,
00:28:04.600 | and we had a basement full of maternity clothes and like baby things and crib and a high chair,
00:28:13.240 | like stuff that my daughter had just outgrown.
00:28:17.300 | And I remember we tried to sell it at a garage sale and like hardly any of it sold.
00:28:23.200 | And so, I called my neighbor who I knew worked at the Care Net Pregnancy Center in Burlington,
00:28:29.680 | Vermont, just down the road from us.
00:28:31.920 | I'm like "hey, we have all this baby stuff, I was just going to take it to Goodwill, but
00:28:36.080 | is this stuff that you could use?"
00:28:39.940 | And I remember like I'll never forget it, she's like "yeah, we can use that, that's
00:28:44.680 | exactly what we do.
00:28:46.400 | Like we work with families in poverty, we work with single mothers and we give them
00:28:51.680 | maternity clothes, baby clothes, high chairs, cribs, bottles, blankets, like the whole deal".
00:28:58.240 | And I was like "man, I guess I never knew what you did or I never knew how much of a
00:29:03.160 | need there was in the community".
00:29:05.880 | And we went into our basement and we found more boxes of stuff that we didn't need.
00:29:10.880 | And we're like "man, if there's someone in the community that can be using this stuff
00:29:14.560 | like right now, why in the world would we let it just collect dust in our basement?"
00:29:18.880 | So, I think generosity and donating can help us to get rid of even more and more.
00:29:23.680 | If anyone listening has probably already heard me talk about the book Happy Money, which
00:29:28.600 | it now turns out I learned there are two.
00:29:30.080 | So, the one by Elizabeth Dunn, one of the five things that I guess science has shown
00:29:34.160 | that at least this is spending money on, but I think the principles apply is spending money
00:29:39.480 | on others and giving money away.
00:29:41.360 | So, certainly the same principle I think would apply to things and...
00:29:45.640 | What are the other four?
00:29:46.640 | Because I always just list three things that science says we can spend our money on to
00:29:50.600 | make us happy.
00:29:51.600 | But do you remember?
00:29:52.600 | I shouldn't be putting you on the spot.
00:29:53.600 | So, there are ways that you can spend money.
00:29:54.880 | So, one is making things a treat.
00:29:56.400 | So, if you buy a latte every day, maybe consider buying the latte once a month or buying it
00:30:02.280 | once a week to make it a surprise.
00:30:04.560 | One is pre-paying for things.
00:30:07.080 | It's kind of like pay now, consume later.
00:30:08.560 | If you're going on a vacation, see if you can call the hotel and pay for the entire
00:30:13.080 | stay in advance so that when you end your hotel stay, your final experience isn't looking
00:30:19.020 | at this bill that was a few thousand dollars.
00:30:21.640 | I said invest in others.
00:30:23.200 | It's fun.
00:30:24.560 | I love being put on the spot.
00:30:25.560 | One is buying time.
00:30:26.560 | So, if there's a thing you don't love, if you hate cleaning your house, spend money.
00:30:29.200 | I imagine that's one that you've done.
00:30:30.640 | And then the last is probably one we've all heard, which is buying experiences.
00:30:34.000 | All right.
00:30:35.560 | I have the bottom three.
00:30:36.840 | Whenever I talk about the three ways you can spend money that increase happiness, experiences
00:30:42.320 | over possessions, buying time and being generous with our money.
00:30:45.920 | But I have...
00:30:46.920 | Yeah, the other two.
00:30:47.920 | First two.
00:30:48.920 | Pay now, consume later and make it a treat.
00:30:49.920 | All right.
00:30:50.920 | Let's talk about it.
00:30:51.920 | Those are a lot of the roadblocks.
00:30:53.080 | And I appreciate talking through them because I imagine a lot of people have come to this
00:30:57.960 | conclusion.
00:30:58.960 | The last one I want to ask about, which is interesting, because we're having another
00:31:01.760 | child in a few months.
00:31:03.520 | And we were thinking about a trade-off here, which is time is of the essence.
00:31:08.120 | We just talked about spending money on time is a good use of money.
00:31:11.320 | One of the things that takes up a lot of time when you have a child, things get dirty all
00:31:14.400 | the time.
00:31:15.400 | Burp, claws, bibs.
00:31:17.280 | So we went through this conversation at lunch today.
00:31:20.120 | In advance of having this conversation, and we're like, "Gosh."
00:31:23.840 | Our instinct was let's overbuy the bibs so we can underspend time on laundry.
00:31:30.420 | But you could make a case that we could buy three or four bibs and wash them.
00:31:34.320 | Or we could buy 20 and do laundry once a week.
00:31:37.480 | You just said you recommend spending money on things to buy time, but you also like owning
00:31:41.320 | fewer things.
00:31:43.060 | Does the temporal nature of something like a burp cloth that you might only need for
00:31:46.680 | a year have kind of a carve out in the need for owning fewer possessions?
00:31:51.800 | Oh, that would be an interesting one.
00:31:54.560 | I don't know how you'll know until you're actually in it.
00:31:58.200 | What is enough?
00:31:59.360 | How much underwear should I own?
00:32:01.140 | How many pairs of shoes should I own?
00:32:03.220 | How many towels should I have in my home?
00:32:05.400 | How many square footage should I have in my home?
00:32:07.480 | I get asked everything.
00:32:08.640 | And the answer is, you really just need to experiment in your home to find out what is
00:32:15.560 | going to work best for you.
00:32:17.760 | My hope with possessions or my goal with possessions is that my possessions are not a burden to
00:32:24.680 | me, whether in too few or in too many.
00:32:29.680 | And most of us live with more possessions than we need.
00:32:34.200 | And so, it has become a burden to us and a distraction from things that matter.
00:32:39.480 | But there is the case that you could have too few of something and it also becomes burdensome.
00:32:44.560 | If I have to visit a laundromat and I got to go there every two days, then at that point,
00:32:48.840 | it's becoming more of a burden to have fewer burp claws or fewer clothes than it would
00:32:53.840 | be to have a week's worth that fit into one wash.
00:32:56.480 | I suppose I could make the case that yeah, we're not going to use burp claws for that
00:33:01.320 | long and can donate burp claws probably, I suppose, if they're clean.
00:33:05.200 | So I don't know.
00:33:07.080 | I love the - what is the normal laundry routine in your family?
00:33:11.360 | How often do you do laundry?
00:33:13.360 | Is it once a week?
00:33:14.440 | Then what's going up once you add a new human into the family, or at least there's going
00:33:18.800 | to be more of it.
00:33:19.960 | But what makes sense?
00:33:20.960 | What gets us through one cycle?
00:33:22.880 | I know there are a lot of trends in kind of minimalism and everything.
00:33:26.620 | A lot of people in the past few years have talked about Marie Kondo, only keep things
00:33:30.440 | that spark joy.
00:33:32.160 | Are a lot of these different things?
00:33:34.480 | Do they work together?
00:33:35.480 | Are they different paths, different sex you have to pick one to follow?
00:33:39.360 | Can you mix and match?
00:33:40.360 | Do you have favorites?
00:33:41.360 | Or do you think about all that's going on in the kind of broader space?
00:33:45.280 | I think we're all having a similar conversation, but getting there a different way.
00:33:49.240 | I tend to like the questions that I have people ask and the approach that I have people go.
00:33:55.360 | I tend to think, what is my purpose in life and do these possessions help me do that?
00:34:00.960 | Or are they distracting me from it?
00:34:02.800 | I tend to think that's a better long-term question than does this item spark joy in
00:34:08.160 | the present moment or not?
00:34:10.240 | But that being said, I've said this before, I'm for anyone who can help people own less
00:34:15.720 | stuff and if does it spark joy is the question that allows me to start making progress in
00:34:22.360 | my home.
00:34:23.360 | Marie is very much category by category as opposed to room by room and if that works
00:34:28.200 | for you, then I think go for it.
00:34:30.520 | I tend to think that the way I encourage people to do it tends to work a little bit better,
00:34:34.200 | but I think different people can do it in different ways.
00:34:37.120 | I think generally, we're all talking about owning just the things you need to own to
00:34:41.600 | live your life the best way that you possibly can.
00:34:44.240 | Probably what that looks like in the end differs from person to person, but that's fine.
00:34:48.160 | We're all coming at it from different viewpoints and we're all different people trying to do
00:34:52.080 | it anyway.
00:34:53.080 | Are there a few examples of the question you like to ask and particular items that you've
00:34:58.440 | talked to people about that might bring an example to light for people?
00:35:02.040 | The questions that I have people ask, number one, do I need it?
00:35:05.160 | Which is pretty common.
00:35:06.320 | Number two, why do I have it?
00:35:08.280 | Number three, what would I use if I didn't have it?
00:35:11.040 | Tends to be very helpful.
00:35:12.400 | The overarching philosophy for me is, does this item help me fulfill my purpose?
00:35:20.640 | What are my greatest goals in life?
00:35:22.640 | Who do I want to be?
00:35:23.880 | What do I want to do?
00:35:25.000 | What are my values?
00:35:26.240 | And then, what things do I need to own to help me accomplish those values and accomplish
00:35:32.960 | those goals and what are the things that are keeping me from it?
00:35:36.400 | I learned it really early on.
00:35:38.240 | There's a couple up in Portland named Logan and Tammy Strobel and they had moved out of
00:35:43.680 | their home into a tiny home and there were two of them and they just had two plates and
00:35:48.560 | they had two cups and two forks and like a hundred things between them.
00:35:52.520 | Meanwhile, we were a family of four and we lived in the suburbs of Vermont.
00:35:56.880 | I was working at a church at the time and we loved having people over for dinner.
00:36:02.800 | I was doing weddings, we'd have future newlyweds over, not just to plan the wedding but to
00:36:08.320 | talk about marriage and how to make it successful and we would always have dinner.
00:36:13.560 | And so, I remember looking at the plates and the cups and the forks and remembering Logan
00:36:19.920 | and Tammy just owned two, like well, we're a family of four, we need four.
00:36:25.880 | But also, having people over is pretty important to us and something that we want to do even
00:36:32.520 | more of not less of and so, it became well, let's keep eight plates and let's keep eight
00:36:37.840 | forks and let's keep eight coffee mugs.
00:36:40.120 | We only need three or four sets of eight plates and eight coffee mugs but if this is something
00:36:44.480 | that we're going to do more of, then certainly we need to have the things in place to accomplish
00:36:49.480 | that more.
00:36:50.480 | Were there a few hard items where you kind of got on the fence about, "Gosh, this one
00:36:54.600 | I don't know" that maybe went the other way?
00:36:57.280 | I learned a lot about clothes, like really changed the way I dress.
00:37:01.040 | I tend to wear the same thing every single day now, V-neck t-shirt and pants and I just
00:37:06.920 | - I never imagined going into this that I would wear the same thing every single day
00:37:11.840 | but now that I do, I love it and would never go back to having to decide every morning
00:37:17.560 | what to wear because it's just one less decision that I have to make.
00:37:23.440 | I feel like I could do that and probably do.
00:37:25.480 | I think my wife would struggle with that a lot more.
00:37:27.720 | I learned it from Courtney Carver, she writes at bemorewithless.com and she lives in Salt
00:37:32.880 | Lake City and I learned that whole idea from her, so I hear a lot of, "Well, that's easy
00:37:39.760 | for you because you're a guy" and I always respond, "Yeah, but I learned it from a woman",
00:37:44.560 | so that's always my approach.
00:37:46.320 | Certainly different personalities look at it different ways.
00:37:49.320 | So, I want to move on to your new book, Things That Matter and you wrote it to help people
00:37:55.120 | overcome distractions.
00:37:57.520 | How do you think all of the work you did in minimalism and all the learnings you had brought
00:38:02.440 | you to this moment?
00:38:04.000 | - That's a super helpful question because minimizing possessions was what sparked this
00:38:08.540 | thinking of, "Hey, how did my home fill up with all these things?
00:38:14.360 | Like, why did I have boxes full of stuff that I didn't need?
00:38:17.640 | Why did I have minivan loads full of things that I could take to Goodwill or the pregnancy
00:38:22.240 | center?"
00:38:23.240 | I never set out to just spend my life buying a bunch of stuff that I didn't need.
00:38:29.600 | So, how did this happen?
00:38:30.760 | It just struck me that I was just living a pretty unintentional life.
00:38:35.040 | I never would have said my goal was to own a whole bunch of stuff, but that's how I was
00:38:38.760 | living and that's what I was thinking about and that's what I was doing.
00:38:42.040 | And so, I started owning less stuff and seeing how that freed me up to focus more on things
00:38:48.160 | that actually mattered.
00:38:49.560 | And it occurred to me that possessions, that physical things aren't the only distraction
00:38:55.120 | that can slowly creep into our lives and things that very subtly begin to shape the way we
00:39:01.400 | live or become the things that motivate us rather than longer lasting pursuits.
00:39:06.480 | And so, the book lists out eight distractions that keep people from things that matter.
00:39:12.080 | And ultimately, I think that we get to the end of our lives and regret some of the decisions
00:39:17.520 | that we made.
00:39:18.520 | How do we overcome that regret?
00:39:20.000 | How do we get to the end of our lives feeling the most satisfied and the most fulfilled?
00:39:24.240 | And I think we do that by identifying what is most important and then by daily removing
00:39:29.760 | any distractions that keep us from it.
00:39:32.560 | So, you highlight eight distractions.
00:39:35.640 | I would highly recommend anyone listening go and read to dig into those eight distractions.
00:39:41.520 | But could we kind of run through at a high level what they are so people can get a sense
00:39:44.780 | of ones that might resonate with them and kind of inspire them to want to go pick up
00:39:48.920 | the book and start with the chapter there?
00:39:50.960 | Let me give you the eight distractions that I cover in the book.
00:39:54.680 | Each is a listing of the distraction and then how we begin to overcome them.
00:39:59.140 | Not that there's a three-step approach to overcoming all these things.
00:40:03.120 | These are lifelong pursuits in a lot of ways.
00:40:04.880 | But the distractions are fear, past mistakes, happiness, money, possessions, accolades,
00:40:17.060 | leisure and tech.
00:40:19.100 | Those are the eight.
00:40:20.100 | Okay.
00:40:21.100 | Or trivial.
00:40:22.100 | I like to say trivial more than tech, but same thing.
00:40:25.060 | And is there one that's the most important one to think about or if you looked at them
00:40:29.780 | and said "God, I have a little bit of all of these I should tackle first as one to try
00:40:33.980 | to kind of overcome"?
00:40:35.660 | I think that probably we all have each of these to some degree or another.
00:40:40.740 | I did a nationwide survey for the book and I would say the most heartbreaking response
00:40:47.020 | that we got back was 60% of people say that they are held back from the future they want
00:40:54.260 | because of past mistakes they've committed in their life and 56% of people say that they
00:41:02.320 | are held back from the future they want because of a past mistake committed against them.
00:41:10.060 | It really shook me.
00:41:11.060 | I was pretty emotional when I saw that and that's just the people who would recognize
00:41:15.040 | it and articulate it, but that is a lot of potential that is being bottled up because
00:41:22.340 | of a mistake.
00:41:23.340 | 60% of us would say it out loud that "I can't live the future I want because of something
00:41:28.820 | that I did in the past" or "something that was done to me in the past".
00:41:33.180 | That's always a big one that I think comes to mind.
00:41:35.460 | Money is a huge one.
00:41:36.900 | Over 80% of us think we'll be happier if we have more money and 77% of us say that our
00:41:41.660 | desire for money affects our decisions every single day and money has a role in our lives,
00:41:48.420 | but when the desire for money becomes the thing that dictates our decisions, this is
00:41:54.100 | when I think we get to the end and like "what did I waste my life for?
00:41:57.700 | I spent my whole life always needing more and more money all the time when in reality,
00:42:03.460 | I had enough to live the life that I needed and could have been living instead".
00:42:09.620 | We talk a lot about money on the show, so I'd love to dig in a little bit there and
00:42:12.860 | say I imagine a lot of people resonate with that.
00:42:16.780 | My wife and I have this conversation all the time.
00:42:18.740 | It's like "oh, you know, we got to get to this milestone or this milestone" and as we
00:42:23.180 | think about it, we reflect and say "well, maybe we don't".
00:42:26.700 | And it's easier to say "you know what, maybe money is not going to actually make us happier
00:42:30.900 | and maybe we don't need that milestone", but that doesn't always change how you feel in
00:42:35.380 | the moment of seeing something or wanting something or hearing your friends talk in
00:42:40.400 | a certain way.
00:42:41.400 | So, how do you go to that next step of "I've acknowledged that maybe money isn't the end
00:42:46.000 | all most important thing to my happiness, but it still gives me angst or distracts me"?
00:42:52.140 | Ninety percent of Americans say that they have financial related stress.
00:42:56.340 | This was probably the stat that really sent me down this road when I read that.
00:43:02.580 | Ninety percent of us have financial related stress and I'm like "we're the wealthiest
00:43:08.100 | nation in the history of the world, like why are ninety percent of us stressed about money?
00:43:14.380 | It's not because we don't have food, it's not because we don't have shelter, it's not
00:43:19.900 | because we don't have clothing".
00:43:21.940 | Certainly some of us don't have those things, but not ninety percent of us.
00:43:25.460 | And so, I started wondering like "why is it that we're constantly stressed about money?"
00:43:31.620 | and I've just come to the conclusion that it's because we keep expecting money to provide
00:43:39.140 | something that it's never going to provide.
00:43:42.140 | If we think more money is going to make us happy or that we're finally going to feel
00:43:48.060 | secure with how much money we have, and we get this picture in our head of how much we
00:43:53.060 | need, how much we think people who make that money are happy or feel secure, and then we
00:43:58.420 | get there and we don't feel secure and we don't feel happier, then the thinking never
00:44:08.180 | becomes "hey, maybe I'm just not going to find security and happiness in money".
00:44:15.380 | Instead the thinking becomes "I just had the wrong number and actually I need this much
00:44:22.780 | money or I need to be making that much money and then I'll finally feel satisfied or secure
00:44:29.260 | or happy".
00:44:30.260 | Eighty-seven percent of millionaires say that they are not wealthy.
00:44:36.700 | And so, the reality is that we need to realize that we're not going to find those things
00:44:40.700 | in money.
00:44:41.940 | Harvard did this just fascinating study, 100,000 people I think they did in this study
00:44:47.140 | and they were like trying to figure out finally does money bring happiness.
00:44:51.580 | There's all these debates of oh, $50,000 a year or $75,000 a year or money never really
00:44:57.820 | brings happiness.
00:44:58.820 | How do we solve this whole thing?
00:45:00.460 | And they came to the conclusion after interviewing 100,000 people that the thing that trips us
00:45:06.300 | up is when money becomes the priority in our lives.
00:45:11.940 | Or more specifically, when we start sacrificing time for money or when we start sacrificing
00:45:19.460 | other things that are important to us for the sake of making more money, that this is
00:45:24.180 | when life satisfaction really begins to drop.
00:45:28.100 | And so, coming to the conclusion that "hey, I have enough money coming in to support my
00:45:34.300 | needs or I don't have to spend my entire life constantly pursuing more and more and more,
00:45:39.740 | but I have enough to meet my needs and my life would be much better served investing
00:45:45.340 | my time into other things that actually matter".
00:45:49.340 | I'm not sure if that answered your question, but I got to say a lot of things that I like
00:45:52.140 | to say.
00:45:53.140 | No, no, I think it's helpful and it sounds like it's really more a process of having
00:45:58.540 | a conversation whether it's with yourself, your partner, your family, but there's no
00:46:02.520 | magic bullet to stop wanting more money as much as there is a conversation you need to
00:46:08.100 | keep thinking about.
00:46:09.100 | Yeah, although I could give you a bullet, give some money away.
00:46:12.220 | Give away $100, give away $50, give away $10, whatever it is.
00:46:17.220 | Give something away or give away a little bit more than you already do and do it every
00:46:21.220 | single week and find out if you still have food and you still have shelter and you still
00:46:29.300 | have clothing and you will and the greatest benefit of generosity I think to ourselves
00:46:38.300 | is that we realize that we already have enough.
00:46:41.460 | Just give away five dollars a week and when you realize that you've given away five dollars
00:46:46.180 | a week every week for two months and you still have food and you still have shelter, then
00:46:51.300 | we realize "okay, not only do I have enough money coming in, but I have so much money
00:46:58.380 | that I can actually give some away to someone else who needs it" and I think this then begins
00:47:05.140 | to reframe not just how much money we need, but just the joy that comes from helping someone
00:47:13.260 | that's in need from finding a problem in the world that we want to solve and not just thinking
00:47:19.100 | about it but actually being a part of the solution even if it's just to a small degree.
00:47:23.740 | I think this is how we begin to reshape this constant need for money all the time.
00:47:29.780 | Okay, Joshua just challenged us to all start giving some money away to help overcome the
00:47:35.100 | distraction of money and find the joy that comes from helping someone in need or from
00:47:39.660 | finding a problem we want to solve in the world and being a part of the solution.
00:47:44.140 | That kind of a challenge is exactly why I'm so happy to be partnering with Daffy today.
00:47:49.380 | Daffy is an amazing company that Amy and I use for all our giving and they're on a mission
00:47:54.140 | to help people be more generous more often.
00:47:57.700 | They offer an account that makes it easy to put money aside for charity.
00:48:01.620 | You can make a one-time contribution or you can set a little aside each week or month
00:48:06.340 | and all of your contributions are tax-deductible.
00:48:10.020 | Except you don't have to know exactly where you want to give the money right away.
00:48:13.740 | In fact, you can make your tax-deductible contribution now and invest the money in stocks
00:48:18.740 | or even crypto so it can grow tax-free and let you have more impact in the future.
00:48:24.540 | Then whenever you're ready, you can give to any of more than 1.5 million charities, schools,
00:48:30.020 | and faith-based organizations in a matter of seconds.
00:48:33.460 | So head on over to allthehacks.com/daffy if you want to start giving today.
00:48:39.940 | And for a limited time, if you visit that link, you can get a free $25 to give to the
00:48:45.220 | charity of your choice.
00:48:46.740 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/daffy.
00:48:52.980 | I just want to thank you quick for listening to and supporting the show.
00:48:56.780 | Your support is what keeps this show going.
00:48:59.540 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals, and discounts from our partners, you can go to
00:49:04.580 | allthehacks.com/deals.
00:49:07.620 | So please consider supporting those who support us.
00:49:10.820 | You talked a lot in the book about being generous and how generosity helps and how acts of service
00:49:16.740 | help towards focusing on things that matter.
00:49:19.420 | Are there things other than giving that can kind of help focus less on yourself and more
00:49:25.260 | on others?
00:49:26.260 | Yeah, getting out and doing something, getting dirt under your fingernails, as what I say
00:49:30.800 | in the book.
00:49:31.800 | Stop just reading about problems in the world and give something to it or get out and do
00:49:36.500 | something concerning it.
00:49:38.020 | But you can even take it beyond this.
00:49:39.920 | It's just a whole mindset, even going to work on any given day.
00:49:45.900 | Like what is my goal for the day ahead of me?
00:49:48.780 | If my goal for the day ahead of me is I need to earn the raise or I need notice by the
00:49:54.940 | boss so that I can receive the praise or the accolades.
00:49:58.420 | If every day at work is all about what can I get out of this, that's a completely different
00:50:03.860 | way to approach work than hey, how can I just bring benefit to the people around me?
00:50:11.720 | Like who can I help today, who could I serve today, who could I invest into today?
00:50:18.540 | Not because of something that I'm going to get out of it, but just because it makes the
00:50:22.340 | world a better place by giving or serving or helping.
00:50:26.820 | It's just a very different way to approach life.
00:50:29.500 | I love it.
00:50:30.500 | So, I want to get to the last distraction you had, which was around technology or I
00:50:35.180 | think you said earlier, trivial things.
00:50:37.500 | Let's talk about that a little because I think technology and the internet and our phones
00:50:42.400 | have really become a distraction.
00:50:44.240 | I did a whole episode with Nir Eyal, who wrote this book about becoming indistractable.
00:50:49.960 | So we don't necessarily need to go down the "How do you notice in the moment that you're
00:50:53.200 | about to use your phone?" and maybe not do that so you can spend time with your family.
00:50:58.800 | But how is technology preventing us from finding our purpose, from finding the things we care
00:51:03.580 | about or as you say, the things that matter?
00:51:06.520 | I like to use the word "the trivial" because we're here today because of technology.
00:51:11.480 | Like the technology in and of itself isn't the distraction, I get to do what I do every
00:51:17.040 | single day because of technology.
00:51:19.200 | Am I using technology to create good into the world or am I just being used by technology
00:51:26.020 | for whatever the platform or app is trying to do?
00:51:29.200 | I think that's what becomes the distraction.
00:51:31.400 | So I think it's important to remember that this distraction of the trivial isn't necessarily
00:51:36.560 | new.
00:51:37.560 | I can remember even reading from ancient Rome, the arguments of not going to the Colosseum
00:51:44.200 | because it was a waste of time from things that actually matter and things that are more
00:51:48.800 | important.
00:51:49.800 | And I'm sure we had the same conversation when television started or radio or even books
00:51:55.120 | probably to some extent.
00:51:56.880 | Like there's always been that distraction of less important things, tyranny of the urgent
00:52:01.280 | I think as someone once called it.
00:52:02.760 | Our tech is certainly much more available than it was ever before and certainly around
00:52:08.520 | us all the time.
00:52:09.520 | The way we think about technology and trying to recognize I can use this for good or I
00:52:14.160 | can be used by it to separate creation from consumption online and start to notice, am
00:52:21.240 | I using this to serve my purpose or am I being used by it?
00:52:26.120 | You do mention the concept of taking a digital detox.
00:52:29.160 | If you feel technology is coming on strong, are there things people should think about
00:52:34.160 | when that's relevant or when it might make sense and what is it?
00:52:37.360 | I recommend it for everybody.
00:52:38.760 | I think everybody, certainly anyone who's around technology and feels like it's becoming
00:52:44.840 | a distraction in their life, to take some time away.
00:52:47.960 | Take 30 days, take 29 days.
00:52:50.120 | For me, I've done 40 days different times or a couple weeks.
00:52:54.360 | Pretty much every year, I try to get away because it just helps us understand how much
00:53:00.400 | time we were wasting on some of that stuff and then when we return it back to our lives
00:53:05.640 | and re-engage it, we do it in a much more intentional way, like what did I really miss
00:53:10.520 | about being away from social media or what apps actually were helpful on my phone and
00:53:16.200 | which ones were just distractions.
00:53:17.760 | I really think it's the way to reorient.
00:53:21.000 | It's certainly I think a pretty important first step for people.
00:53:23.720 | I'm all for take all the apps off your home screen or wrap a rubber band around your phone.
00:53:30.600 | Like I'm all in for different hacks and stuff but really the work that we need to do is
00:53:36.000 | reorient entirely.
00:53:38.240 | The summer I think is the best time that you can do that, unless you live in Phoenix like
00:53:42.080 | I do everywhere else, it's pretty nice.
00:53:44.240 | Take a month and don't watch any television for a month, don't use your phone except for
00:53:48.240 | anything but phone and text and your email when you're at work and do it for a month.
00:53:52.960 | See how it makes you feel and what you notice and what you missed and what was actually
00:53:57.440 | essential and what wasn't.
00:53:59.040 | Wow.
00:54:00.040 | For someone who kind of lives multiple jobs on the internet, it seems impossible but I
00:54:03.840 | sometimes commit to on the spot to things.
00:54:06.520 | I committed to a month of cold showers in an interview, I am not going to commit.
00:54:11.440 | There you go, there you go.
00:54:15.520 | So one thing before we wrap, I try to ask everyone for wherever they are in the world
00:54:20.320 | or a city they know well to give everyone some recommendations, maybe for their summer
00:54:24.600 | travels if they end up in that place for where you think they should get a bite to eat or
00:54:30.120 | have dinner, meet a friend for a drink or a coffee and something they should do.
00:54:35.720 | You can pick any city you want and I'd love to hear those three things.
00:54:39.120 | Sure, I forget the three things because the whole time I was thinking we probably shouldn't
00:54:43.200 | come to Phoenix in the summer but if you're in Phoenix, which you should totally come
00:54:48.080 | to but maybe just not in June, July or August.
00:54:50.760 | There's a little Mexican place called Barrio Cafe and I would send people there.
00:54:55.360 | It's a great little Mexican place, probably going to be a long line to get a seat at the
00:54:58.840 | table but it's well worth it.
00:55:00.800 | Barrio Cafe, you got to go hiking when you're in Phoenix, hike up Camelback Mountain.
00:55:06.200 | There's two routes up Camelback Mountain, there's a really strenuous one that literally
00:55:10.520 | has you climbing up boulders and then there's a much more peaceful one but that's the hike
00:55:15.400 | to do if you're going to be in Phoenix.
00:55:18.280 | That's great.
00:55:19.280 | I will put that on the list and before we wrap, we've talked about the book a few times,
00:55:23.440 | Things That Matter.
00:55:24.440 | I definitely think people listening should check it out.
00:55:26.960 | Where can people stay on top of everything you're up to online and get in touch?
00:55:31.280 | Yes, Things That Matter, overcoming distraction to pursue a more meaningful life.
00:55:35.120 | You can find it everywhere.
00:55:36.320 | My home base is becomingminimalist.com.
00:55:40.720 | Anything and everything I do runs through there.
00:55:42.760 | I should be on a speaking tour through what I'm calling the Midwest from Omaha and Chicago,
00:55:47.720 | Nashville, Louisville, Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, all the way over to Austin.
00:55:53.760 | So I'll be doing that this summer so people can come join me in July.
00:55:58.320 | Sounds great.
00:55:59.320 | Thank you so much for being here.
00:56:00.320 | Wonderful.
00:56:01.320 | Thanks for having me.
00:56:02.320 | This has been great.
00:56:04.280 | I really hope you enjoyed this episode.
00:56:06.240 | Thank you so much for listening.
00:56:07.920 | If you haven't already left a rating and a review for the show in Apple Podcasts or
00:56:11.920 | Spotify, I would really appreciate it.
00:56:14.240 | And if you have any feedback on the show, questions for me, or just want to say hi,
00:56:18.200 | I'm chris@allthehacks.com or @hutchins on Twitter.
00:56:22.740 | That's it for this week.
00:56:23.740 | I'll see you next week.
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