600 Live with Less with Joshua Fields Millburn

"HOW MIGHT YOUR LIFE BE BETTER WITH LESS? I know so many people who are struggling with debt. They are looking for ways to retake control of their finances, and often times they feel hopeless. For all of you who are feeling this way, I wanted to bring you back this clip from a previous episode with Joshua Fields Millburn. This 5 Minute Friday talks about what it's like, and what it means, to live a minimalist lifestyle. If you are looking to take control of your life, this may be something you will want to consider. Learn all about the benefits of minimalism in just five minutes, on Episode 600. In This Episode You Will Learn: What minimalists ask themselves (1:02) How minimalism helps with debt (1:28) The oldest person Joshua helped become a minimalist (2:07) The youngest person Joshua has known to be a minimalist (2:28) The truth about the minimalist lifestyle (2:58) The 3 rules of minimalist mindset (4:10) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:11Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have the minimalist Joshua Fields Millburn on today's Super Pumps. Now, for those that feel like you are overwhelmed with too much stuff in your house, too many things, too many possessions, this is the episode for you to learn more about why less is more. Now Joshua Fields Millburn is a writer and a minimalist. He's the co-founder of the popular blog and podcast that gets millions of downloads and followers on the blog called The Minimalists, as well as the author of several books on the same topic, and he owns fewer than 288 things, people.

• 0:54Lewis Howes?

  That's right, only 288 possessions total.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  How might your life be better with less? It's a counterintuitive question at first, right? Because we're always thinking about more. How do I get this? How do I bring this into my life? How do I achieve that? How do I take on this new responsibility, this new project? How do I get this promotion? But how might my life be better with less?

• 1:21Speaker 01

  That's a different question. And for me, at first, it was less commitment, less financial obligation. For me, I had all that debt. And so, the first benefit for me was regaining control of my finances and developing a plan to deal with that. And to do that, I had to be less focused on the stuff. I had to sell a lot of stuff. I had to stop accumulating and buying things because the price tag is one cost, but then there's all these other costs as well. You have to have the space to store it, or to clean it, or to take care of it, or to charge it, or to whatever, put gas in it, all of these things. And so, by asking that question. How might your life be better with less? You identify what the benefits are for you. And they're different for everyone.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  I had a 93-year-old come to our last event in San Diego. And she came in the hug line afterward and she goes, "I just want you to know that..." She brought three generations of daughters. So her daughter, her granddaughter, and her great-granddaughter with her. And she goes, "I just want you to know that I'm 93 years old and I am finally simplifying my life for the first time." Wow. We had a 13-year-old show up in Omaha, Nebraska. And I'm like, "Hey buddy, did your mom drag you out here? I see you're with your mom here." He's like, "Are you kidding me? I dragged her out here." Because I thought maybe my parents could find some value, some benefits in this minimalist message. That's cool. And what I learned is the benefits are gonna be different for everyone. But we're all asking the same question.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  It's, "How do I live a more meaningful life?" And part of that has to do with just changing our focus to figure out what's important. For me, minimalism isn't a radical lifestyle. It's a practical lifestyle. And my version of minimalism is going to look different from your version. It's gonna look different from Leo's version, who has six kids. His will necessarily look different. I'll tell you this, Leo is the ultimate minimalist. He washes his shirts in the sink still. No way. He doesn't make his family do that, but he does it as a ritual to show that he can, he doesn't have to have this attachment to these things. I like the washer and dryer. Amen. No, I have a washer and dryer. I do too, but he finds value in that ritual. And so, that's different for him. And what I've realized is that, as a minimalist,

• 3:33Speaker 01

  everything I own serves a purpose, or it brings me joy. So whether it's serving a purpose, like the equipment that you have here, those are all tools. Or they bring you joy, like aesthetic joy. Like you have these photos and artwork and things on the walls and hangers and things like that. That serves an aesthetic purpose as well. And so it brings you joy in some way. I think that's great. I don't want people to deprive themselves or think that's necessary. Now, you can temporarily deprive yourself. I think sometimes that's helpful. If you remove something from your life for a temporary period of time, like I did with the cellphone, to figure out, when I bring it back in, does this actually add value? And if so, how can it add the most value to my life?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Number one.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Let it go. It's just stuff. Number two. You can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. And number three. Love people and use things, because the opposite never works.