0:06

This podcast has bad words. Hello,

0:19

everybody.

0:38

Welcome to the Minimalist

0:40

Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live

0:42

a meaningful life with less. My

0:45

name is Joshua Fields Milburn. I'm here

0:47

with my good friend, the shaman

0:49

from Schaumburg, TK

0:51

Coleman. Let's

0:53

create a great day. I'll ignore the

0:55

insult. Wait, why is Schaumburg an insult? I've done

0:58

a speaking gig in Schaumburg. It's a

1:00

great place. I love Schaumburg, but you know that's not

1:02

about Schaumburg. You're just trying to take Chicago

1:04

away from me. Don't put this on Schaumburg.

1:07

And the beautiful

1:08

laugh you hear in the background,

1:10

that is of course, Malibama. He's

1:12

on 200 milligrams today for the

1:15

episode 420.

1:16

Hi, everybody. I most definitely am not. Speaking

1:21

of episode 420, Nicodemus is going to be joining

1:24

us here in a little bit during the

1:26

lightning round. We've got the rest of our team in

1:28

the studio as well. Coming up today on this free

1:30

public minimal episode, we are joined

1:33

by our good friend,

1:34

Leo Babalta. He's the founder of the

1:36

popular blog, ZenHabits.net,

1:39

and he's got a brand new podcast out. It's called the Zen

1:42

Habits Podcast. Together, we're going

1:44

to talk to a caller about the existential

1:46

clutter that she's struggling with after

1:49

all her material clutter is gone.

1:51

And another listener has a question about being

1:54

tempted by consumerism again after

1:56

reducing all of her possessions.

1:59

Then we've got our...

1:59

lightning round segment, a fam's question, and

2:02

a listener tip for you. You can check out the full

2:05

two hour maximal edition of episode 420,

2:09

where we answer five times the questions and we dive

2:11

deep into several simple living segments.

2:13

That private podcast episode is out right

2:15

now at patreon.com slash

2:18

The Minimalist. Your support keeps our podcast

2:20

and YouTube channel 100% advertisement

2:23

free, because say it with me y'all, advertisements

2:27

suck. Let's start with our callers. If you have a

2:29

question or a comment for our show, you can give

2:31

us a call, 406-219-7839, or

2:35

email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast

2:38

at theminimalists.com.

2:41

Our first question today is from PK.

2:43

Hello Josh, Ryan, and TK.

2:46

This is PK calling from

2:48

Copenhagen. So

2:50

for the last two months or so, I've been

2:53

getting rid of stuff at quite a high pace and

2:55

have been feeling the relief every time.

2:59

Now I am at this point where

3:01

I have integrated the principles of minimalism

3:04

quite well into my everyday life and

3:06

I'm enjoying that. But

3:08

as you guys always say, minimalism

3:10

is about creating space for what's really important.

3:14

At this point in my process, I'm starting

3:16

to deal with some sort of existential

3:19

dread or anxiety about

3:22

how I'm spending my time, how I'm

3:24

choosing what to engage in, be

3:27

that relationships, career,

3:29

hobbies, and plans for the future.

3:33

When I take a look at my life, I am quite

3:35

privileged in that I have many wonderful

3:38

friends, I'm close with my family,

3:40

I have a job which I love and I have interests

3:43

and hobbies and time to pursue them. I

3:46

am not in a relationship at the moment

3:49

and I thrive quite well solo, but

3:51

I would like a significant other at some point.

3:55

Also, I don't have any children and I'm

3:57

not sure I want at any

3:59

point to have.

4:00

I

4:01

am in my early

4:03

to mid 30s and I find

4:05

myself more than ever faced with the

4:07

question of what to pursue at a deeper

4:10

level and how to bring sufficient

4:12

meaning into my everyday life. So

4:15

I'd really love to hear you guys talk

4:17

a bit about whether this is

4:19

something you recognize, you know, having

4:22

created space for what is really important in your

4:24

life and maybe having doubts

4:26

about what that actually is and

4:28

how to find it, especially outside

4:31

of children and marriages, that

4:33

is the situation I'm in at the moment.

4:36

You know, I often say minimalism

4:38

is the thing that gets us past the thing so we

4:41

can make room for life's most important thing. The

4:43

making room, as she alluded to

4:46

here, what

4:47

we realize is the most important things

4:49

aren't things.

4:51

Leo, you really helped me understand that early

4:53

on. Even though you were living with a big family

4:56

and they had their own things and

4:58

it wasn't about affecting their things or

5:00

changing their things, it was about

5:03

looking inside yourself and

5:05

realizing what enough is. Yeah,

5:08

absolutely.

5:09

That

5:11

was my journey as well, just like

5:13

getting rid of my own stuff, not taking

5:16

away my family stuff because

5:18

they were gripping to it really tightly. But

5:21

getting rid of my stuff, at first

5:23

it was just about like, ah, it's just too much. It's

5:25

overwhelming, it's stressful to have all this clutter

5:28

and I realized I didn't really need any of

5:30

that stuff. So in the beginning it was about getting rid

5:32

of all of the stuff that was stressing me out.

5:35

But as I did so, it started to make

5:38

what my values were more clear. So I'm

5:41

like, oh, do I really need this? Does this stuff

5:43

matter? And so it has you

5:45

ask that question, like what actually matters to me? And

5:48

you realize none of this stuff matters, almost

5:50

none of it matters except for those kids

5:53

and my wife and other family members. And

5:57

so I started to, it has

5:59

you ask that question. question and I think it's a really important

6:01

question. What does matter? And

6:04

I really love what

6:06

PK is asking about because what happens

6:09

after you strip away all of it and she's had some amazing

6:11

success and I really want to congratulate her

6:14

on that is what

6:16

minimalism does is it strips your shit

6:18

bare. It lays it all out

6:21

and surfaces those bigger questions.

6:23

It's like what do I really want to do with my life? What's

6:25

meaningful? And even just

6:27

like, you know, the emotions that have been

6:29

there underneath all of this stuff, after you get rid

6:32

of it, then it's just like maybe you have some

6:34

grief left over from losing somebody or

6:36

something. Maybe you have some

6:38

like loneliness that starts to surface

6:41

because I've gotten rid of everything

6:43

and now I don't have distractions from my loneliness.

6:46

And I and that can feel like dread

6:48

or you know, because I don't know what I want to be doing with

6:50

my life. But I actually think we

6:53

we need to surface that or we don't need

6:56

to, but it's there and we're just ignoring

6:58

it. And it still has an effect on us. So

7:00

I've been diving deep into this is like

7:02

what's underneath all of this stuff. And

7:05

this dread that she's talking about, like,

7:09

that's just the, you know,

7:11

the layer of being that's underneath after

7:13

you remove all of this stuff. And

7:15

so it's uncertainty,

7:18

it's loneliness, it's sadness, it's fear.

7:21

It's all of those things that are already there. And

7:24

now we're exposed to it. And

7:26

now we can actually work with it. We can actually like bring

7:28

some love to it, some attention. It's actually

7:31

crying for a presence.

7:33

And

7:34

that's that's the spiritual stuff

7:36

that we were talking about before the transcendence.

7:39

That's, that's all what's left

7:42

after you remove all of this stuff.

7:44

DK, I'm fascinated by this question

7:46

she asked, what to pursue?

7:49

He's

7:49

confused about what to pursue.

7:52

And that presupposes and I get it in our

7:54

culture, what happens, you're supposed

7:56

to pursue status and things.

7:59

And now follower counts and clout

8:02

or whatever else it might be. Of course you're

8:04

supposed to pursue more wealth, more

8:06

money, more, more, more.

8:09

And then of course then we transfer that to, okay,

8:12

what other kind of more should I get?

8:14

It presupposes there is something

8:16

you should pursue,

8:19

but that's not necessarily true,

8:21

I don't think. Yeah, it just

8:23

goes to show how a change in circumstance

8:26

or an outward condition

8:28

doesn't necessarily produce a change in

8:30

mindset, right? You can still live

8:32

a life that's oriented

8:34

around the pursuit of stuff even

8:36

in the absence of stuff. Hey, I've gotten

8:38

rid of all my stuff, but my whole life has been

8:40

about the acquisition and organization of stuff.

8:43

So now my question is, hey, what

8:46

stuff do I fill this empty space with? What

8:48

stuff do I do now? And

8:50

I really like Leo's observation

8:52

here where it's like the willingness

8:54

to just dance with those kinds of

8:57

questions is a kind of wisdom

8:59

unto itself because most people really

9:01

do spend their whole lives

9:03

running from a confrontation with their

9:05

own emptiness. And so to be available

9:07

to our own emptiness is itself

9:10

a kind of fullness. And I just want to affirm

9:12

that as a kind of progress. And

9:15

what I would say is maybe there's room

9:18

to shift the question from

9:20

what should I pursue to

9:22

who should I pursue? When

9:24

you think about intimacy in a relationship, if I

9:26

say, Leo, Josh, I feel like

9:29

I don't really know you guys. Well,

9:31

what's the solution to that? We've got to spend some

9:33

time together. I can't give you a survey

9:35

or ask you 20 questions to

9:38

instantaneously manufacture

9:40

the hard-earned wisdom that only comes

9:42

through the development of a genuine connection

9:44

over time. But sometimes when it comes to

9:47

self-knowledge, we demand all of our wisdom at once,

9:50

because we know that wisdom enhances the quality of

9:52

life. But sometimes it's life lived

9:54

that enhances the quality of our wisdom. And

9:57

so one thing I would propose is... setting

10:00

aside

10:01

time to construct a rhythm of

10:04

going on a date with yourself. You've

10:06

got to get to know yourself because all this stuff

10:08

has been in the way for a really long time and

10:11

you've got some thoughts, some feelings, a

10:13

lot of stuff going on. That's really interesting.

10:16

That's worth getting to know. And what you're really craving

10:18

is that sense of alignment, that sense of connection

10:20

with yourself, that sense of intimacy

10:22

with your inner being. And you can only get

10:24

that by saying, I'm going to make me

10:27

a priority. And whether it's every

10:29

Wednesday, who is it, Speed Levitch who said something

10:31

like on Tuesday nights, I go salsa

10:33

dancing with myself. And I

10:35

think something along those lines

10:38

would be a constructive direction

10:40

in which to move. Amen. Yeah.

10:43

Amazing. Yeah.

10:44

Leo, let me ask you, it was a bit

10:46

of a dance there for you as well, because

10:49

you were looking at inward and

10:51

you were saying, OK, I don't necessarily

10:54

need these things. But then I also

10:56

have the not just the societal

10:58

pressure, but the familial pressure,

11:01

whether it's your immediate family who's living

11:03

in the same house as you, or maybe

11:05

it's just the extended family as well.

11:08

And they have certain expectations. And when we

11:10

change, it creates pain in our own

11:12

lives. But sometimes it creates pain for the people

11:14

around us.

11:15

Yeah, that's that was something that

11:18

I started to had to grapple

11:20

with, was like their their reaction

11:22

to my change. And

11:26

I think the thing that that TK is talking

11:28

about is this kind of like self introspection,

11:31

self discovery really help with

11:34

that, because at first

11:36

it was like they might have their reaction

11:38

to my changes. So like, let's

11:40

say they're upset with it or they felt really

11:42

uncertain about it. And then I

11:45

take that to mean like, I need to stop

11:47

doing this. And so I. And

11:52

I would stop doing what I'm doing or I would

11:54

feel really resentful or I would push myself

11:56

to do it, but instead what

11:59

I've been doing is just like. like allowing them to

12:01

have their reaction. They're just having a reaction

12:03

to what I'm doing and so then I can allow

12:06

them to have their reaction and then allow

12:08

myself to have my reaction in response

12:10

to that.

12:11

And you're not pathologizing their reaction

12:13

then and saying, oh, your reaction's wrong. It

12:16

makes sense quite often when we make a

12:18

dramatic change, someone

12:21

else around us, and it's not, PK doesn't

12:23

have kids and she currently doesn't have a partner,

12:25

but it doesn't mean she won't have people around

12:27

her who are questioning or even

12:29

judging what's going on, but quite

12:32

often that reaction just says more about the

12:34

state that they're in right now. It

12:36

took me 30 years to stumble into

12:38

minimalism, expecting my

12:40

roommate or my spouse or my kids

12:43

or someone else to then pick it up overnight

12:45

is just an unrealistic

12:46

expectation. And they're allowed

12:48

to react. They're allowed to be upset or frustrated

12:51

or afraid at whatever changes

12:53

that we're creating in their lives. So

12:56

just allowing that to be and just trusting them.

12:58

PK, I'd love to send you a copy of our

13:00

new old book. So Everything That

13:03

Remains is a 10 year

13:05

anniversary now. Ryan and I

13:07

moved to Montana in 2012 into

13:11

a cab in the middle of nowhere, one traffic light

13:13

in 3,400 square miles. I

13:16

got there on October 3rd in the middle of a blizzard. So

13:18

there's nothing to do because it's negative 26 degrees

13:21

every morning. And so nothing

13:23

to do other than write where we were. And

13:25

we wrote this book, it's called Everything That Remains.

13:28

It's written from my perspective. And then throughout,

13:30

Ryan interrupts me 205 times throughout

13:34

the book. And so it's rather mimetic

13:36

of our relationship. He's

13:39

interrupting me all the time. And

13:41

then I'm picking back up. You're doing most of the talking.

13:43

Yes, exactly. Which

13:46

is ironic because as soon as the mics are off,

13:48

Ryan does 99% of the talking. Absolutely.

13:52

I'm the most extreme. You're in the seams. I'm the most

13:54

extreme introvert. He's the most extreme extrovert

13:57

I've ever met. And yet

13:58

in the creative process.

13:59

us here. I really love this book

14:02

because it's the story of these two suit and

14:04

tie corporate guys who started reducing their

14:06

possession and we realized pretty quickly

14:09

this isn't about the stuff. The stories

14:11

that we tell ourselves about the stuff,

14:13

once you get those out of the way, the stuff is not about

14:15

the stuff. It's about the anxiety

14:18

and the grief and the expectations

14:20

that have been hurled onto us through society

14:22

and also my own expectations that

14:24

misled me in this direction.

14:26

That didn't bring me happiness. I was pursuing,

14:29

as PK talked about, I was pursuing

14:31

all of these wrong things, but

14:34

it wasn't about just pursuing something

14:36

different. It was about dropping that pursuit altogether,

14:39

realizing there's a happiness that is

14:41

embedded and for the 10 year anniversary

14:43

of everything that remains,

14:45

we'll send you the audio book version or if you want the book

14:48

or the ebook, we're happy to send those to you as well. PK,

14:51

this really talented artist from Mexico,

14:54

her name is Grise and she

14:56

is, I mean, you can see the artwork here, although

14:59

this is a not for sale copy

15:01

here. So there's something ruining her artwork on the cover

15:03

if you're watching the video version of this, but

15:05

we'll put a link to the book in the show notes.

15:07

You can check it out right now. Everything

15:10

that remains 10 year anniversary

15:12

and we made it

15:13

aggressively simple. If you just listen to the audio

15:15

version of this, it is just this line,

15:18

this geometric line drawing of

15:20

me and Ryan. We took all the words off the

15:22

cover, inspired by

15:24

Zenhabits.net by the way. If you look at his website,

15:27

it's the most aggressively minimalist, but

15:29

still communicates everything it

15:31

needs to communicate. And we

15:34

stripped this down. We had the title on here.

15:36

We had the author's names and all this

15:38

stuff. We're like, no,

15:39

let's just strip it down to

15:41

the bare essentials, just

15:43

this image. And

15:46

here's the truth. This is my favorite book that we've ever

15:48

written. We've had four books together, Ryan and

15:50

I, but it had my least favorite cover

15:53

and now it has my absolute favorite

15:56

cover of any of our books. It's

15:58

everything that remains the 10 year. anniversary.

16:00

P.K., we're going to send you a copy of that

16:02

book. Our next question is from

16:05

Kay.

16:06

Hi there. My name is Kay. I'm from

16:08

the UK. My question

16:11

for you guys is how do I get

16:13

back on track after falling off the minimal

16:15

wagon? I've been

16:17

decluttering for nearly a year. I

16:20

was doing really well. My mum had introduced

16:22

me to yourselves, so I was taking

16:25

in a lot of your advice

16:27

and putting it to practice. But

16:30

recently I've found myself really

16:32

sort

16:32

of going back to overspending

16:34

quite a lot

16:37

of accumulating unnecessary items.

16:40

And my house is beginning to feel like really

16:43

heavy again, and I'm struggling

16:45

to get back to that minimal mindset. And

16:48

I mean, I've put in such a great amount of effort

16:51

to reduce my belongings, but

16:54

in like a short space of time, I

16:56

feel like I've really let myself down and I'm going

16:58

back down that rabbit hole of consumerism.

17:01

And I just wondered what advice you

17:03

would give to help me

17:05

get back

17:06

on track.

17:08

Yeah. Thank you. Hope you're all well.

17:10

Bye.

17:12

Leo, I think this happens quite a bit. We start

17:14

letting go and then we feel a burst

17:16

of dopamine, of joy, of whatever

17:18

from clearing the clutter. But

17:21

then we start questioning and she's now enticed

17:24

by consumerism once again.

17:27

By the way, we got Kay, we got P.K., a

17:30

lot of kids. She's from the UK. Hey,

17:32

hey, hey. I

17:37

was like, cut it out guys. And so

17:39

I maybe the message here is that it's going to be

17:42

okay. And there is a bit of existential

17:45

clutter that's going on with Kay.

17:48

And it seems like what she's realized

17:50

is that

17:51

reducing the possessions is the

17:54

starting point. It's not the finish

17:56

line. Right. And I think quite often we get confused

17:58

up front is like, if I, just get rid of my

18:00

things, then I'll be happy.

18:03

If I just pare down to whatever

18:06

is essential, then that will equal

18:08

perpetual bliss. But minimalism

18:11

doesn't work like that, does it?

18:13

Yeah, well, there's the underlying

18:15

thing that has us fill our lives

18:18

in the first place, right? That doesn't go

18:20

away right away. And so you

18:22

get rid of all the stuff, but the impulse,

18:24

the urge to fill it up is

18:26

still there. And so you'll

18:29

fall back into old habits. And

18:32

I

18:32

think,

18:34

so what we usually do in that place where

18:36

K is, is like, okay, I wanna get back on track,

18:39

is we just say, okay, now I'm gonna do it this

18:41

time. I'm gonna do it right this time. So

18:43

you just, I'm gonna start. Now, this is not just with minimalism,

18:46

it's with any habit, exercise,

18:48

eating, meditation. It's like, okay,

18:51

I fell off, now I just need to do it. Get

18:53

back on and do it. And so people

18:55

will just set themselves like, I'm gonna now clear my

18:57

life out again and

18:59

just get back on track.

19:01

But they haven't addressed the thing that got them

19:04

off track in the first place.

19:06

And so they connect, you can

19:08

actually do it, but then you're gonna fall back into the old habit

19:10

again. You haven't removed that thing yet. We

19:12

haven't addressed it. And so

19:14

I find that to be a, it's

19:18

gonna be like spinning in a wheel. You're gonna keep

19:20

going over and over again. And

19:23

I like to slow it down and just

19:26

pause where Kay is at because I find

19:28

that that moment where you're like, I've fallen

19:31

off and I wanna get back on is

19:33

a spiritual moment. This

19:35

is a moment when you can just slow down and

19:37

stop. You don't have to start right away. And

19:40

first of all, ask yourself, like,

19:42

how are you feeling about the fact that you fell off?

19:45

You could hear what she said. She's really like discouraged

19:48

and feeling bad about herself. So

19:51

there's like this disappointment in myself. It's

19:53

like inadequacy that I'm feeling. And

19:55

so you can just stay there with those feelings and

19:57

just be like some of that self-discovery

20:00

that you were talking about, just be there

20:02

with that and start to bring some love to that,

20:04

some compassion. Because that is

20:06

what we want to solve

20:08

by doing the next thing. If I can

20:10

go and declutter everything, I'm gonna

20:13

not feel this way anymore. But that doesn't

20:15

go away, we're kind of pasting over it,

20:18

just so that we don't have to feel that. So what

20:20

if we just let ourselves feel it without needing to

20:22

add a bunch of extra stuff on top of that.

20:25

And then the next thing

20:27

in that spiritual moment is what caused

20:29

me to get off track? There's something

20:31

to be learned in that. We don't like to look back,

20:33

we wanna look forward because that's where the

20:35

good stuff is gonna be. That's the bad

20:37

stuff. But what if actually there's some good stuff

20:40

in that that we can learn from that? Like

20:43

oh, when I'm online shopping 24 hours

20:45

a day, what's

20:47

going on there? What's the itch

20:49

that's underneath that online shopping? It's

20:53

like, oh, I'm feeling unsatisfied with my

20:55

life. Or I'm feeling like I need some kind

20:57

of joy in my life, or

20:59

something else. Whatever it is, look at the

21:02

thing that got you off track. And is there

21:04

something there that you could learn? How is that gonna

21:06

change when you do the next iteration of this?

21:09

And,

21:11

well, maybe I need to find some joy.

21:13

Maybe I need to address my dissatisfaction

21:16

with my life. And so you

21:18

can learn, mine

21:20

the data from all of that of

21:22

what happened and then start to move forward.

21:25

And for moving forward, I like to also

21:27

go slow. Let me

21:29

just start to ease back into it. Just really

21:32

just let myself move through

21:34

it without needing to rush

21:36

and get to the end. Because that's not the

21:38

point of getting to the end. It's being part

21:40

of this process.

21:43

You

21:43

know, that reminds me on the, what do we

21:45

call it? X. Yeah.

21:48

Social media site. Twitter is X. Formerly known as Twitter.

21:50

No. What you're saying,

21:52

Leo, reminds me. I just saw a video this

21:55

past week on site formerly

21:57

known as Twitter. Where there was some amusement

21:59

park and there was a- ride where

22:01

people, they didn't fall out entirely,

22:04

but they were kind of like hanging. Oh my God.

22:06

And people were like, what's wrong with

22:08

this amusement park? What's wrong with this

22:11

ride? You know, who screwed up to make this happen?

22:13

But you know what? No one was asking, no one was asking,

22:16

what did the people in the ride do to fall

22:18

out? And I go, hey, that's

22:20

interesting. But when it comes to us and our

22:22

efforts to eat better, exercise better,

22:25

meditate better, meditate other people better, when

22:27

we fall off the wagon, we say, what's

22:29

wrong with me for falling off that wagon?

22:32

We never say, what's wrong with the wagon? That it wasn't

22:34

able to sustain me. And

22:36

sometimes when it comes to our goals

22:39

and our failures, it's because

22:41

we have these systems that are just not

22:43

sustainable. But the thing about an unsustainable

22:45

system is if you're sufficiently motivated,

22:48

fired up,

22:49

you can

22:50

implement it for a while. And you can put on

22:52

a really impressive run of like two weeks, two

22:55

months. But then you fall off that wagon,

22:57

you go, what's wrong with me? And it's like, no, there's

22:59

nothing wrong with you. What happened was you put

23:01

a system in place that's just not sustainable.

23:04

And it took two months, two years or whatever it

23:06

was for you to realize, hey, we need to go

23:08

back to the drawing board and ask, what

23:10

is it about my wagon that isn't

23:12

able to sustain me? I know that I want

23:14

to change. I know what my intentions are.

23:17

Maybe I'm driving this wagon

23:19

down the wrong road. Or maybe there's something

23:22

about the way I've designed it that just isn't allowed

23:24

to last for longer than a year. And

23:26

I would go back to that wagon and I would say, I know

23:28

who I want to be, but is there a way

23:30

to be the person that I want to be in

23:34

a manner that allows more room for grace,

23:37

more room for humanity? Instead

23:39

of saying, I'm going to get up and read six

23:41

hours a day every day, or I'm going to run

23:43

six miles every day. Is there a way to set

23:46

some goals or establish a process

23:48

that's a little more human and that allows

23:50

me to be honest about what I know I

23:52

can do even on my worst day of the week?

23:55

And I would take a look at

23:57

something with my process.

23:59

I was just talking to a friend about this last night.

24:02

In fact, she's going through a lot of things. She's kind of

24:04

beaten herself up over, I've

24:06

made these decisions. I've got these bad

24:08

habits now, or I've picked them back

24:11

up. And the thing I've learned most from meditation

24:13

is like, you can always begin

24:16

again. In fact, that is

24:18

always what we're doing. Even if we continue

24:20

a, what we perceive to be a bad habit,

24:23

it's not even a continuation so much as

24:25

it is continuing to begin again

24:28

with that bad habit. There's so much so that

24:30

it does become routine, but

24:32

the good news there is the opposite is

24:34

also true. It is possible

24:36

to begin again. It doesn't mean that you have to

24:39

start everything over. It

24:41

doesn't even mean you have to do anything. Beginning

24:44

again doesn't mean, oh, I've done all the bad

24:46

things and now it's time for me to do the

24:48

good things. It isn't even necessarily

24:51

about the doing. As Leo just

24:53

suggested, you can sit

24:55

with it for a moment. You can slow down

24:57

and say, okay, let me reflect on

25:00

these choices I've made and

25:02

the actions I've made. And maybe the antidote

25:05

to it is not better choices and

25:07

better actions and better habits

25:10

and betterment of myself. It's

25:12

actually witnessing and understanding

25:14

where this comes from so I

25:16

can move on and I can

25:17

let go of those habits that

25:19

I'm clinging to. Do you have anything to say about

25:21

that, Leo?

25:24

Yeah, sitting with

25:26

it, as you were saying, is

25:28

a beginning again. This is where

25:31

we usually do is try and rush

25:33

past the feelings that we're having about things.

25:36

The urges that we're having, we want to move

25:38

beyond all of the stuff that we're feeling.

25:41

We don't even notice we're feeling it, so we just rush and

25:44

distract ourselves. So sitting with it

25:46

is a beginning again where it's just like, let me just

25:48

sit with this. I'm

25:51

feeling about how I failed or about

25:54

all the things that I bought. Feel

25:56

what's driving me to buy all

25:58

of these things.

25:59

all that stuff. Let me just sit

26:02

with it. And if you could

26:04

just be with that free

26:06

of the story about it. So there's

26:08

a story that we have about ourselves where we're

26:10

like, I'm crappy that I did all of these things

26:12

and some kind of story of inadequacy.

26:15

And so that is going

26:18

to continue to continually drive that

26:20

stuff up in us. And so if we can just

26:22

be with the sensation in the body,

26:25

like where is it located in your body? Okay,

26:27

right here in the heart, I'm feeling like a tightness. What

26:30

else do you notice about that? I'm feeling like

26:32

a tenderness underneath that my breath

26:34

is shallow and a little bit of a hollowness

26:37

in my stomach.

26:38

There's no story about that. Those are just what's

26:41

happening right now in the moment. So that's

26:43

what I would say is just sit with all

26:45

of that. And if you can have

26:47

an empowering relationship to that, it'll

26:50

change it. So it's like, okay, what

26:52

right now I'm feeling disempowered about

26:54

it because I want to get rid of it. I don't

26:56

like it. I think there's something about it that means

26:58

I failed and I suck. But

27:01

what if those feelings are just like

27:04

a tenderness? Like what if it's just

27:06

a,

27:08

as you said, your humanity, like

27:10

just your humanity right now feeling a little bit

27:12

tender about how things have gone. And so

27:14

if you could just sit with your humanity,

27:17

that's a beautiful thing. And it's not anything

27:20

that we need to like get away from or disempower.

27:23

You know, it's funny, I was in the grocery store just

27:25

a couple of days ago and I was

27:27

walking down the cookie aisle and

27:29

to my eyes, the cookies looked

27:32

so good and I looked at them to

27:34

give it a thought. And I didn't

27:36

even notice that I started

27:38

doing this. I started soothing

27:41

my stomach. And when I looked at that, I'm like,

27:44

oh, my body is telling

27:46

me like I already felt uncomfortable

27:49

at the thought of eating those cookies. Oh,

27:51

really? Yeah. And I was soothing it for

27:53

like after I was soothing it for the

27:55

discomfort I knew I would feel like

27:58

like I could just feel it again. gut level, like

28:00

my body doesn't want it. They look good to

28:02

my eyes and my mind wants it, but my body

28:05

doesn't want this. And so when you're talking

28:07

about being present to the body and like sensing

28:10

that tightness, one of the cool things about

28:12

it is once you cultivate that awareness,

28:14

you get to bring that to the development

28:17

of your process. So as you're designing

28:19

your wagon, sometimes your body

28:21

will tell you like, hey, that's, I

28:24

don't want that many wheels on my wagon. I

28:26

don't want my wagon to be colored that way

28:28

or set up in that way. And you can sort of

28:31

know what process is right for

28:33

you just based on how it feels sometimes. Malabama,

28:37

what time is it? You

28:38

know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round

28:40

where we answer your questions from TikTok.

28:42

Yes, indeed. You can follow The Minimalists

28:44

on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X,

28:47

and threads. We're at The Minimalists

28:49

on all of those platforms. Now, during

28:51

the lightning round, we each have 60 seconds

28:54

to answer your question with a short, shareable,

28:56

less than 140 character response. We

28:59

put the text to these minimal maxims in the show

29:01

notes over at theminimalists.com

29:03

slash podcast so you can copy

29:06

and share our pithy answers on social

29:08

media if you'd like. And by the way, if you want those minimal

29:10

maxims delivered to your inbox every

29:12

Monday, just sign up for our email list, theminimalists.email.

29:17

We'll never send you advertisements. We'll never send

29:19

you spam. We'll never send you junk. We

29:22

will start your week off with a little bit of

29:24

pithy insight.

29:25

We'll simplify your week at

29:27

the very beginning. Joining us right

29:30

now for the lightning round is

29:33

my best friend, Ryan Nicodemus.

29:36

What is up, y'all? Woo!

29:38

Hey, friend! Oh, it's so good to be here. Ryan,

29:40

I was just thinking about this. Our friendship is 32

29:43

years old right now, which means during the next election

29:46

cycle, our best friendship

29:48

can run for president. Wow!

29:52

Dude, let's do it. No, not us.

29:54

Just our friendship. Oh, oh, oh. Dibs

29:58

on vice president. All right. Oh, I knick

30:00

at the limits looks way better on the t-shirt,

30:02

right? Nick at the miss Milburn 2028 or whatever. By

30:08

the way, I was just looking at the new book

30:10

cover that, uh, Greece put

30:12

together the, the, the talented artists

30:15

from Mexico. And I forgot to mention,

30:17

I gave away one of these books. I'm holding up right now for folks

30:20

watching the video version. We stripped away

30:22

everything. All the words are gone from the

30:25

cover. Well, not from the book itself, but just from the

30:27

cover. The words are still in the book. I've checked. But

30:31

it's just great drawing of me

30:33

and Ryan that she did years ago. And I always knew I wanted

30:35

to use this and I would say, check out her website. It's

30:37

Greece a.ark. We'll put a link

30:39

to that in the show notes as well.

30:42

Ryan, let's dive into this lightning round.

30:44

Taki bear from tick tock has a question

30:46

for us. Our

30:47

smartphones give us access to books,

30:50

music, notebooks, recorders, cameras,

30:52

photo albums, maps, watches, calculators,

30:54

and on and on. Does

30:57

this mean smartphones are a minimalist

30:59

tool or a maximalist device?

31:01

Ryan, I thought this

31:03

question was perfect for this episode

31:05

because we just talked to Leo Babalta

31:08

about this earlier in the episode. Someone called

31:10

in and they are actually, yeah,

31:13

he called in. He had a question about multi-purpose

31:15

tools. And sometimes

31:18

it can be like a smartphone as a multi-purpose tool,

31:20

but other times it can be you buy one

31:22

pair of shoes and it replaces seven

31:25

other shoes that you didn't really like that much.

31:27

And the same can be true with a shirt you you

31:29

buy or certainly some pants are really

31:31

versatile. So there are some pants you could

31:33

wear to a wedding and to the gym.

31:36

And maybe you don't have to have 14 different

31:38

pairs of pants. But let's talk to Taki

31:41

bear specifically about the

31:43

smartphone. Do you have something pithy

31:45

for him?

31:46

Oh, yes. You know, the smartphone

31:49

is a minimal tool that causes

31:51

maximal distraction. And,

31:54

you know, when we go into questions

31:56

like this asking if a smartphone

31:59

is a minimal. or maximal device,

32:01

we can get caught into binary

32:04

thinking. Because it's a lot easier to just say smartphone

32:06

good or smartphone bad. But

32:08

you know, most material possessions, they

32:10

don't have an inherently good or bad

32:12

label. The question is, who

32:15

possesses it and how do they use

32:17

it?

32:18

Yeah, I think that's spot on because

32:21

that tool is really useful.

32:24

I had Mallory buy some duct tape recently.

32:28

And now post-production

32:30

Peter is tied up in our basement right now. We

32:32

let him out just to master the episode. That's

32:35

what you needed that for. How

32:38

did you sneak him out of my basement? And

32:43

so that duct tape is a great tool. You can use

32:45

it to, of course, tape a duct or

32:47

a duck, whatever you want to tape. But

32:50

actually, I think that's a good

32:52

illustration here. I might need

32:54

that tape to fix something or I might

32:57

use it to harm someone or harm

32:59

myself. How are you using the tool?

33:01

And quite often with the smartphone, we're

33:03

using it beyond its usefulness to

33:06

the point where, you know what, it was

33:08

useful, but now it is harmful in

33:10

the way that I'm using it. TK, you got

33:12

something 50 for us. Yeah. So

33:15

minimalism is the antidote to excess,

33:17

but it doesn't have to be the enemy of access.

33:21

Imagine if I'm in a grocery store. There are so

33:23

many options, more things than I could ever

33:25

need. But if I try to stuff it

33:28

all into my cart, it instantly

33:30

becomes clutter

33:31

and the access gets transformed

33:33

into excess. But when I step back

33:35

and I say, let me remember why I came here

33:37

and let me find the best combination of what

33:39

I want,

33:40

what I need, and what I can afford, that

33:42

stuff comes out of the cart, goes back on

33:44

the shelf, and then the excess becomes

33:47

access. So whether we're talking about grocery stores

33:49

or the smartphone, that's

33:52

what happens when intentionality

33:55

meets abundance. But in the absence of

33:57

that intentionality,

33:58

the abundance does become excess. It

34:00

becomes super abundance to the point where

34:02

now it's getting in the way. Thank

34:05

you. That was awesome. How dare you dunk on me like

34:07

that? And

34:09

then I hung on the Ram for an extra 10 seconds

34:12

waiting for somebody to take a picture on it. Anybody

34:15

see this? Anybody see this? It

34:18

makes me go back to the tool example. When

34:21

you look at a hammer, is it a tool

34:23

or is it a weapon? Well,

34:25

it depends on how you use it. I would

34:27

say the same thing is true with your smartphone.

34:30

Is it a tool that is useful

34:33

or is it

34:34

a blunt object you use to harm

34:36

yourself with? Depends

34:38

on how you use it. You could even

34:41

say that for the specific apps on the phone. Instagram

34:44

isn't inherently harmful, but

34:46

man, it can certainly be addictive.

34:48

The same thing

34:50

is true with many of the things that we get addicted

34:53

to. It was maybe helpful at first,

34:55

but at some point when we rely

34:58

on it to pacify us or to make

35:00

us feel better, what happens?

35:03

It ceases being a tool and it starts being a weapon

35:06

that

35:06

we use to harm ourselves. All right,

35:09

real quick for right here, right now,

35:12

here's one thing or actually two things going on

35:14

in the life of the minimalist.

35:17

Our audio book for love people use things.

35:19

It's a 10 hour audio book. It's now available

35:21

for anyone who has Spotify Premium.

35:23

Obviously this isn't an ad. Ryan and I,

35:25

we just got the email yesterday

35:27

from the folks over at Macmillan to let us

35:30

know that that audio book that he

35:32

and I read, it's 10 hours long. One

35:34

of our favorite things that we've written, our

35:37

most recent book, Love People Use Things,

35:39

is now available, well, it's always been available

35:41

as an audio book. Now it's available on Spotify for anyone

35:43

who has Spotify Premium. We'll put a

35:46

link to that in the show notes. Also this

35:48

Sunday, December 3rd, 2023, Sunday

35:52

Symposium is back and in

35:54

a new venue. I'll tell you this, the

35:56

event sold out immediately. But

35:59

we did so this week.

35:59

aside 50 free tickets for

36:02

folks who couldn't afford to join

36:04

us. Now these tickets, they don't guarantee you

36:06

a seat, but they do guarantee you entry

36:09

into our new venue. It's the Greenway

36:11

theater over here in West Hollywood.

36:15

And what a beautiful, perfect

36:17

theater for this event here. A few

36:19

details real quick, by the way, get your ticket right

36:22

now. They're free, but they'll go immediately because

36:24

they're free. I mean, the ones that weren't free went immediately.

36:26

Sunday symposium.com. Just a few details

36:29

here.

36:29

You want to arrive by 11 a.m. Maybe even a little sooner.

36:32

We're going to do some coffee and community

36:34

mingling at the beginning of this. This is the perfect

36:36

venue for that. We've got some lawn

36:39

space out front. So bring your blanket

36:41

or chairs if you want to hang

36:43

out with other folks and including the

36:46

minimalist will be hanging out on the patio

36:48

on where there's all this mingling that can happen

36:50

there. And then 1130, we've got Kelly

36:52

Jean coming back to do a sound bath

36:54

for half an hour at 1130. The minimalist

36:57

will be on at noon and we'll do

36:59

a hug line somewhere around one o'clock.

37:01

So get there early by 11 or

37:04

even earlier for some coffee, some

37:06

time with the minimalists. It's going to be an outstanding

37:09

event. Sunday symposium.com

37:12

and Alabama. Every month

37:14

we do the Friday afternoon

37:16

minimalist zooms the first Friday of each

37:19

month. You can have a zoom call with

37:22

the minimalist. We answer your questions. We talk

37:24

about what's going on in our lives. You can turn

37:26

your camera on, you can join us or you can

37:28

just turn your camera off and be a fly on the wall.

37:30

You can observe the call. This is for anyone

37:33

who subscribes to the video version of

37:35

our private podcast. And Alabama's

37:38

over there in the chat during all of those

37:40

calls and she's collecting your questions.

37:43

The ones

37:43

we can't get to, we'll talk about on the podcast.

37:45

Do you have one for us right now?

37:46

I sure do. This one comes from Joanna.

37:49

Do you feel that on some level you now

37:51

have an identity as minimalists

37:53

as opposed to looking for an identity

37:56

through things?

37:57

Ryan, I'm thinking about Ram Dass here.

38:00

Oh, that's cute. You have it. You think you have an identity But

38:04

our identity is basically whatever story we

38:06

tell ourselves about ourselves And

38:08

so like my identity is I

38:10

am the director of operations at this

38:13

telecom company or my identity is

38:15

I'm a husband Or my identity is

38:17

I'm a truck driver. My identity is

38:19

I'm a yoga instructor. My identity

38:22

is I am a minimalist

38:24

or I'm one of the Minimalists

38:27

and I think that's fine. There's nothing

38:29

inherently evil or bad about identities

38:32

The problem is when we cling to that identity

38:34

so far that it it doesn't serve us

38:37

anymore. Do you have any thoughts? Yeah,

38:39

I mean, you know minimalism to

38:41

me. I don't it's not couldn't even be

38:43

an identity. It's it's more of a way of life I

38:47

mean, I guess we are the minimalist so that's

38:50

what our website defines us as but I

38:52

really don't look at it as an Identity and

38:55

I'll say something to just to kind of piggyback

38:57

off of you pointing out how an identity isn't

38:59

a good or a bad thing In fact,

39:01

it could be a very useful thing in a lot

39:03

of ways if we are using it to

39:05

help signify Decisions

39:09

that we make in our lives and

39:11

you know, if we're doing the decisions that

39:13

align with our purpose Then

39:16

that's a great identity to use but if you're doing things

39:19

outside of your purpose outside of your values

39:21

Just so you can have a certain

39:24

identity. Well, that's gonna

39:26

bring misery Yeah, absolutely.

39:28

TK any insights here?

39:30

Yeah, you know, I think of identity

39:32

as kind of like a sense of self And

39:34

I think of brand as a role

39:37

that you play in a public space So

39:40

when I first went to the

39:42

cinema, I was much younger and I saw

39:44

a schoolteacher there. I was blown out

39:46

of my mind What is she doing here? She's a teacher

39:49

and it's like I confused her brand with

39:51

her identity the role that she plays

39:53

at a school With the totality

39:55

of who she is and sometimes we get those things

39:58

mixed up. I think of all the time or

40:00

people are like, oh, I thought you were a minimalist.

40:02

What are you doing owning an object? It's like, oh, wait a minute.

40:05

There's more to me than your

40:07

particular understanding of the philosophy

40:10

of minimalism, right? Or like when I say I listen

40:12

to Christmas music every day, some people attach

40:14

it only to that. You only listen

40:17

to Christmas music, you don't listen to anything else? No, I

40:19

listen to Christmas music every day, but I also

40:21

listen to a whole lot of other stuff. And so what I

40:23

find to be interesting about those two things is

40:25

that it's often the other way around.

40:28

I feel free to make whatever

40:30

choices are best for me. But sometimes

40:33

when I interact with other people that are only

40:35

familiar with the brand and not the personalities

40:37

behind the brand, they're shocked to realize

40:39

that there are other things we talk about besides

40:42

minimalism or that we don't believe it's a sin

40:44

to wear a blue colored t-shirt. The

40:48

other music he listens to is just Millie Vanilli.

40:50

I'm repeating. Not

40:53

just Millie Vanilli, just girl, you

40:55

know it's true. Oh, wow. It

40:58

must be more like a blame it on the rain guy. Although now

41:00

I think about it, TK hasn't blamed anyone for

41:03

anything. So maybe he doesn't have to blame everything

41:05

on the rain. Ryan,

41:07

what I'm hearing here is it's okay to have an

41:10

identity, but man, we're probably best

41:12

served if we hold that identity loosely.

41:14

Because over time what happens is

41:17

our identity changes as we change,

41:19

as we get a new understanding of the world, as

41:21

we grow, as we take on a family,

41:24

or we move to a new location. All

41:27

of those things can become part of our identity.

41:29

This is who I am as a person,

41:32

but I'm also willing to let that identity

41:35

go if it's no longer serving

41:37

me. Ryan, can you stick around for a little bit more?

41:39

I've got this talk aboutable I wanna talk

41:41

to you about on the private podcast. I

41:44

gotta tell you this, man. We

41:46

did accidentally, did one of the most controversial

41:49

things that we've ever done. And

41:52

it was last time, of course, when Ryan was in the

41:54

studio for episode 416. That's

41:57

crazy. And I gotta talk to you about it, but first,

41:59

Mel, Alabama, what do you got for us? Here's a minimalist

42:01

insight from one of our listeners.

42:05

Hi, my name is Rebecca, and I'm a patron

42:07

subscriber from the UK.

42:08

I just wanted to write in and thank the whole minimalist

42:11

team for all that you do. The content

42:13

you create has given me so much guidance

42:15

and hope in a time of turmoil. A

42:18

year and a half ago, my relationship of seven

42:20

years was ending. We lived in

42:22

a four bedroom house piled with stuff. He

42:24

was emotionally abusive and stated that because

42:26

I had made the decision to end it, he would choose

42:29

what he wanted to keep and the leftovers would be mine.

42:32

He chose to keep about 80% of our co-purchase

42:34

belongings. Two months later,

42:36

I was in a one bedroom small house with little remaining

42:39

of what I worked hard for those seven years. I

42:42

was in a state of horrible depression, anxiety

42:44

and grief. This was not the way I'd

42:46

wanted life to go. I felt that

42:48

because I had lost my stuff, my relationship

42:50

and my home, I'd in turn lost

42:52

myself.

42:54

But these are the stories we tell ourselves.

42:57

A few months later, I discovered about cloth

42:59

people use things and it gave me a new

43:01

perspective about relationships,

43:03

about things and about myself. I'd

43:06

felt like I was hindered from being the person I

43:08

strove to be because of the anger, bitterness,

43:10

sadness, the emotional clutter that

43:13

I carried with me. But I realized I could

43:15

work through the difficult emotions and still

43:17

be my best self.

43:19

I started to follow your podcast on Spotify

43:21

and then became a Patreon subscriber a few months ago.

43:24

Not only do your weekly podcasts help me reassess

43:27

how I view the world, they've also helped me

43:29

gain courage to tackle areas of my life

43:31

I didn't think I could, such as cutting

43:33

toxic relationships, handling difficult

43:35

conversations

43:36

and most recently making drastic changes to

43:38

my diet to help with chronic disease.

43:41

I wanted to end this message by sharing an excerpt

43:43

from Titian Hansberg, happiness that

43:46

I find a lot of value in and I think

43:48

rough looks the value, the minimalist.

43:51

I have passed through many storms. Each

43:54

storm has to pass. There is no storm that

43:56

will stay here forever. This condition

43:58

of the mind will also go by.

44:00

Everything is impermanent. The

44:02

storm is only a storm. We

44:05

are not only a storm. We can

44:07

find safety right in the storm. We

44:09

will not let the storm create harm in us.

44:12

Thank you again for all that you do. Much love.

44:17

Alright y'all, we'll see you on Patreon for the full

44:19

two hour maximal edition of episode 420,

44:22

which includes answers to a bunch more

44:24

questions. Look at all these questions, TK.

44:27

We're going to talk about, this is not

44:29

how I wanted to live my life. Is

44:32

this how I want to live my life? What

44:35

is the purpose of a thing if it

44:37

isn't to be used or to be enjoyed? We're

44:40

going to talk about multi-purpose tools. We've

44:42

got some other questions here about holiday

44:44

shopping and how we've turned the holiday season

44:46

into the holiday shopping season. Also,

44:49

let's talk about midlife crises

44:52

and the crisis

44:53

of excess

44:54

in our lives. We've got so much more to talk about on the private

44:57

podcast. So much more of less. And

44:59

if you want to hear all that, visit patreon.com

45:01

slash the minimalist or click the link down

45:04

in the description to subscribe and get your

45:06

personal link so that our weekly maximal

45:08

episodes play in your favorite podcast app.

45:11

You'll also get access to all of our podcast

45:14

archives all the way back to episode 001. By

45:18

the way, Patreon is now offering a free trial.

45:20

So if you'd like to test drive our private

45:23

podcast, you can join for seven days for free. And

45:26

if you're still on the fence, here's a

45:28

testimonial from one of our lovely Patreon

45:30

subscribers. Karen says, I am

45:33

a new private podcast subscriber and

45:35

I can't thank you enough, Joshua,

45:37

Ryan and TK for the value

45:39

you bring to my life. The insights

45:42

you share on the private podcast

45:44

have helped me see the world from

45:47

a different perspective. And I now

45:49

live each day with intention and joy.

45:52

I appreciate that you do not

45:54

prescribe specific activities

45:57

or views and recognize the unique nature of your

45:59

life. needs and values of each

46:01

member of your audience. The impact

46:04

you have had and continue to have on my

46:06

life is tremendous, and I

46:08

credit you for opening my eyes. I am

46:10

finally embracing feeling complete

46:13

on my own, not clinging to

46:15

others, living in the present

46:17

and celebrating the new beginnings

46:20

that come from necessary endings.

46:23

My appreciation for the Minimalist Private

46:25

Podcast

46:27

is boundless.

46:28

Wow. Wow. Thank you, Karen.

46:31

Thank you. That is our Minimal episode

46:33

for today. You can check out Ryan Nicodemus at ryannicodemus.com.

46:36

That is where he

46:39

posts his monthly mentoring message. You

46:41

can get on his email list over there as well.

46:43

And of course, Leo Pavalta, zenhabits.net,

46:46

also the Zen Habits Podcast. We'll

46:48

put a link to all of that over in the show

46:50

notes. If you leave here today with just

46:53

one message,

46:55

let it be this.

46:58

Love people and use things

47:02

because the opposite never works. Thanks

47:04

for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.

47:07

Every little thing

47:09

you think that you need. Every

47:12

little thing you think

47:15

that you need. Every

47:17

little thing that you're feeding

47:20

your greed. Oh, I bet that

47:22

you'd be fine without

47:24

it.