525 | The Outliers

The Minimalists speak with Steve Patterson about being frustrated when people don't understand us, the benefits and downsides of being abnormal, minimizing chaos at a cultural level, and more! Discussed in this episode: Why do people frustrate me when they don't understand my lifestyle? (4:03) In what ways are you abnormal? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? (19:19) Right Here, Right Now: The Minimalists' Simplify Everything decluttering course. (1:04:07) Listener Tip: How might simplifying be an answer to the chaos? (1:05:29) Have a question for the show? Call 406-219-7839 or email a voice memo to [email protected]. Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast

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

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here at our studio in beautiful West Hollywood, California is my good friend TK Coleman.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  It's a beautiful day.

• 0:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, I have a bone to pick with today's guest, and we'll get to that in a minute. But first, I want to tell you a story. We're recording this a day after MLK Day, and my daughter was sleeping in yesterday. And I just discovered, I finally discovered I'm an old man. It has happened. And here's how I figured it out. My daughter's sleeping in, and eventually it's like 9:30, and I want to take her to the park because there's this like big celebration thing going on. And so I go in there to wake her up. And of course, I always wake her up with music, and me being me, I put on "Girl, You Know It's True" by Milli Vanilli, as you do, at 9:30 in the morning. And she just looks up like, what are you doing? Why aren't you letting me sleep? And so to really get into it, I just started doing the Running Man for the entire song.

• 1:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And my knee is destroyed now. From three minutes of the Running Man, I can hardly walk right now. But it was totally worth it, just the look on her face. Anyway, I have a bone to pick with today's guest. Can you guess why TK?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  I could think of a lot of reasons, but I'm wondering what yours is.

• 2:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So Steve Patterson introduced me to TK Coleman. End of story.

• 2:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You wouldn't believe how much money you have cost me.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  No, I'd believe you.

• 2:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I've been a fan of Steve's work for a long time. He has one of my all time favorite podcasts. It's called Patterson in Pursuit. And this is the first time we've ever met. And I'm really glad that you're here today because I wanted to bring you into our world. And we could talk about, well, we got a bunch of questions from our audience, but I also wanted to get to know you a bit as well. You're one of my favorite thinkers and the first conversation I heard between you and TK, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, we are, we are kindred spirits. Even though it's infuriating half the time, it's infuriating in that pleasant way. I listened to all six hours of your debate with TK recently. And by the end of it, I was just like,

• 3:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I love this and I hate it and I love that I hate it. And I don't know what's going on. We got a lot to talk about today. I thought we would talk about being frustrated when people don't understand us. Maybe that's something you can resonate with a bit. Also the benefits and downsides of being abnormal. TK, that's definitely something you can resonate with.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Definitely on the benefits.

• 3:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We're also going to talk about chaos, minimizing chaos at a cultural and societal level, at a system level and much, much more. This is a listener driven show, so we'll get to know Steve through our callers today. Let's dive into some of those calls. 406-219-7839 is the phone number. If you want to join our show or you can send a voice recording to [email protected]. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck. Yes, they do. Our first question today is from Whitney.

• 4:08Speaker 03

  Hello, this is Whitney from Indianapolis, Indiana, a Patreon subscriber. I wanted to get your thoughts on the idea of the outlier. According to dictionary.com, "An outlier is defined as an observation that is well outside of the expected range of values in a study or an experiment and is often discarded from the data set, or a person whose abilities, achievements, etc. lie outside the range of statistical probability." As someone who seems to fit well into the category of outlier, sometimes also called an edge case, I have been told well over 100 times in the last decade that I am the exception and not the rule.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  I have heard it so much, people have taken the time to educate me on how those within the bell curve function. People often dissuade or discourage my ideas initially, and then after years of persistent effort, two, five, 10, and 20 years of persisting at the same problem set, they wish to learn how to repeat my results. I have been told by colleagues, supervisors, doctors, friends, that I am not quite normal, but I can get stuff done. To quote my husband, "You are at least two standard deviations outside the norm in effort and persistence, and you need to stop expecting people to understand you." When I speak about my efforts, others walk away discouraged, hoping I had somehow gotten

• 5:35Speaker 03

  lucky, it seems, instead of putting in work. I find myself frustrated that they cannot seem to understand that I'm not doing anything spectacular, I'm just persisting longer than most. Basically, one must stop expecting to get something they will not work for or change. You all, as the minimalists, seem to fall into the outlier category. Can you explore your own encounters with edge case individuals, or offer your own experiences as being those individuals? Thanks!

• 6:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, Steve, you think you're better than everyone.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  I didn't mean to have to say anything. It just radiates.

• 6:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, this concept is interesting in terms of outliers, but what is more interesting to me about Whitney's question is she's frustrated when other people don't understand her, right?

• 6:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I often think about like, being understood is really nice, but needing to be understood is like a prison sentence. Maybe you can talk to Whitney a bit about that.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  My goodness, I feel like we could make a whole episode on that. So that's an amazing question and I could answer it a few different ways. One, let's, so here's an interesting fact about my history. So I was homeschooled from zero to college. So I didn't go to elementary school or middle school or high school. I just went from homeschool to college. And this was in the 90s. It started in the 90s when it was, homeschooling was of unclear legality. So we actually knew one of the families that was involved in the lawsuit in the state of New York, which made homeschooling legal. So it was early, early days. And so

• 7:22Speaker 04

  I remember all the time being an outlier. So we'd go out, you know, we did a bunch of recreational activities in the middle of the day because I wasn't in school. All the time as a running joke, what are you guys doing here? Why aren't you at school? Like, what's going on? Who are these kids? All the, you know, the infrastructure, the parents, the shopkeepers, everybody's looking at you with a side eye because you're not in school. And you gotta say, oh, I'm homeschooled. And then the next follow-up question would be like, oh, okay. So like, do you get socialized? All the time. It was literally a running joke. So it was, you know, and so one way that we would handle this is, you know, within the group of homeschoolers, it would be, you know, we would sort of exaggerate and we'd, you know, we'd be out and be like, oh, what is that thing up in the sky? Is it

• 8:07Speaker 04

  the sun? Is this what I read about in my books? You know? So I grew up being an outlier. Like the rules that apply to kids. Oftentimes, don't apply to homeschool kids because so many of the rules and expectations revolve around school, the assumption that you're just a kid in school. So, I mean, I lived that my whole life, pretty much. Yeah. And you want to talk about that at all? Because it, you know?

• 8:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I want to talk about the dissatisfaction around being misunderstood.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think that's the thing, because you feel, I'm so abnormal, I'm so strange.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I don't fit in. And I think coming up during the question of the week, we could talk about how that can become a superpower. But right now, can we talk about sitting with that dissatisfaction? People don't see me the way that I'd like them to.

• 8:55Speaker 04

  So the subset of your listeners who are homeschooled are going to really appreciate this. So there's the, there was this phenomenon that still is going on today, which is that some percentage of homeschooled kids sort of resent the fact that they know they're not normal, because they really aren't integrated into the life of peers that they see. They can be friends, but there's always, you know, there's a difference between the public school kids and the homeschool kids. There's another subset, though, and I'm, I am blessed to be part of this. I think this might be the minority, I'm not sure anymore, that views this uniqueness as an incredible blessing. I had a perspective on the world that is very unique, not due

• 9:36Speaker 04

  to my own, you know, uniqueness personally, not my spiritual uniqueness, just the facts of the circumstance of how I was raised. And that gave me a really valuable perspective. Like, I, I, I saw things growing up. I interacted with adults in a way that kids don't usually interact with, and that is helping me form concepts of how I think the world works based on these unique experiences. So I really leaned into it then. I loved the homeschooling experience, and it's sort of set me up for a very unusual career path that I would completely point to the

• 10:14Speaker 02

  The unusualness of my upbringing in that way.

• 10:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I think like Whitney, you are outlier in several ways. And one, you're really tall. Generally, I'm the tallest person. He's like 6'5". And so we had to adjust the camera. Sean's over here climbing up to the ceiling, but you're also an outlier in terms of your intellect. I mean, you're really bright and I find that with TK as well. He's really bright and he has like, you're an outlier. When you have conversations with people, you're not straining to get down to their level. You, in fact, you bring them up to your level in a way that is kind and loving and compassionate. And to me, it's some sort of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu when you're doing that. You're like helping them up to your perspective.

• 11:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so I'm wondering with Whitney here, maybe there's something she needs to understand about like feeling like an outlier, feeling abnormal, that's not necessarily a bad thing. You can still have people relate to you.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And from the sound of it, Whitney seems to be handling this really well, but does touch on some of those moments where it can be frustrating when people treat you like you're the problem just because you're different, especially when those differences produce really positive results. And you know, when you have a history of being right about something, but you're right too early for other people to recognize it and they give you a hard time. And then later on, they find out that you're right. It can be difficult to show grace to those people. You know, you gave me a hard time and now you want to, it's sort of like, hey, fools wouldn't drive. You know, I listened to my demo, now they want to ride in my limo kind of mentality. You know what I mean?

• 11:55Speaker 02

  And I think it can be easy to sort of resent people for not getting you, for not accepting your weirdness or your differences, especially when you know it's producing benefits for them. But I, but I think there's a way to frame this positively and healthfully by saying, if other people could get everything that I got, exactly when I got it, what use would there be for me? If all of my solutions, if all of my insights, if all of my contributions were so obvious that anyone could have thought of them as quickly as I thought of them, in the precise manner in which I thought of them, then what the heck am I here for?

• 12:34Speaker 02

  If I'm in the room, my presence should make a difference such that my absence is noticeable. And sometimes we, we pray for greatness, we seek greatness, we desire uniqueness, or we want to know, what is my place in this world? What is my role in this company? What can I do to add value? But then, when we feel the cost of that, we realize, oh, there are some social consequences, consequences for adding value. We are all outliers relative to some contribution we make, and we have to get comfortable having spaces where people just cannot enter and say, I get you, I relate.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  I want to piggyback on that. So, as I was listening to the question, it reminded me of something my mother said, which I think about fairly frequently, and my wife brings up as well, because it's very, it's very, it's very relevant in many different contexts. So, I was raised, homeschooled, right? And the part of the motivation for that is that my parents were both evangelical Christians. They were very religious, and they wanted to instill that in their kids. And so, being more analytically minded as I was growing up, I started asking a lot of philosophical, very obnoxious questions about their faith. And I would have these conversations with both of my parents, and it would exhaust them. And then, my mother, I definitely got on my dad's skin, I'll tell you that, and for good reason, okay?

• 13:57Speaker 04

  I was an obnoxious, obnoxious child. But, my mom said something multiple times that, that I still literally hear, and she said, Steve, keep pursuing truth, you're doing, you're doing, you're doing your thing well, truth matters. She said, not everybody needs what you need. And I'm like, oh man, I can't, I can't refute that. She said, not everybody needs what you need, implying that, when you, like, I was projecting on other people, well surely you have these beliefs, so you have to understand them, so I'm gonna ask you all the questions to figure out what you know, so that I can see whether or not, right? And she's trying to say, listen, Not everybody needs what you need. So you go as deep as you need to go, but don't, it's a, it would be a mistake to think that everybody has to, to walk the path that you're walking. And I feel like that's true. I can't really, I, I remember thinking this was like,

• 14:42Speaker 04

  uh, this was a devastating counter argument for my mother. Like, what am I supposed to say? No, everybody has to go from A to Z through all the logical deductions and they have to figure out metaphysics in order to say anything. That can't be right. So mine was right. That comes, that comes up frequently in all kinds of contexts where I need to recognize that people work differently internally. They think differently. In many ways, their, their intuitions, even if they're not grounded in the heavy analysis, are probably excellent and justified. I'm probably the foolish one over thinking things anyway. So.

• 15:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We have a tendency to, when we get compelled by something and we then need every, we need to batter everyone else with that teaching or that idea. And, and there's no, no one more dangerous than the new learner. Like, the person who's been a Christian for two weeks, or the person who has, uh, just started watching NBA, and now all of a sudden, they, they, everyone needs to know everything that they think they know. Right? And that becomes dangerous. I don't think that's the type of outlier that we're, we're talking about here. I love what you're saying though, with not everyone needs what you need, but also not everyone wants what you want, right? Not everyone sees the world the way that you see the world. And forcing them to do so would be robbing them of a particular dignity.

• 15:56Speaker 04

  And it would be a disaster, because if everybody was approaching things the way that TK and approached things, the world would fall apart. We spend hours and hours talking nonsense, trying to get one another to define, what do you mean by definition? It's like a three hour conversation. The world would fall apart if people were like us. Too many people, is that not true?

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true. We, we enjoy it, but we do. A lot of people don't.

• 16:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And that, that will drive some people crazy. I'm here to basically just to moderate, but I'm going to keep the thing on the guardrails today, uh, the train on the tracks to extend the metaphor.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  We need that. Thank you.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  One thing I would say could be helpful, especially if you have a strong sense of yourself being an outlier, is to make it a practice when you interact with other. People to try to identify qualities in them that are different from yours so that you can focus on other people's uniqueness as well. Like, what is Steve good at that I'm not good at? What seems to come naturally for him that doesn't come natural for me? What value does he add to my life that I really can't quite reciprocate? Because if we if we go into every experience thinking of ourselves as the outlier and everyone else is the norm, then that makes us hyper focused on a specific subset of our qualities. And it also makes us hyper focused on people's normacy.

• 17:15Speaker 02

  But when we ask ourselves, how is this person I'm sitting across from different from me and better than me in certain areas? And it sort of levels the playing field and it's a continual reminder that we are all uniquely brilliant, all amazingly weird. You know, and surprising and unique in different ways. And that can sort of make it a lot easier to not be resentful and to not be prideful.

• 17:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  To get back to the heart of the question here, one thing she was saying is that you guys are the minimalist, Josh and TK and Ryan. You're outliers. I think that becoming an outlier was never the the destination that ended up being a byproduct. It was, we were living a fairly conventional life, Ryan and I. We grew up really poor, which is pretty conventional in Dayton, Ohio. And then we climbed the corporate ladder throughout our twenties, which is a conventional thing. That's what you're supposed to do. And so conventional is just like doing the thing you're supposed to do. And then you become an outlier when you stop doing the thing you're supposed to do. You were going to, you were at homeschool. You're not doing the thing you're supposed to do. That makes you an outlier.

• 18:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So quite often, becoming an outlier just means that you have set down a prescription that was handed to you by culture, society, whatever you want to call it. And now you're going to be looked at differently as a result. Before we get back to our callers, it is time for the Patreon community chats question of the week. That's where we answer questions with a short shareable. We call them minimal maxims, a little pithy aphorism. Don't worry, TK and I, we prepared ours beforehand. And so we'll monder on a bit. We've got some audience participation here as well. We call them minimal maxims, something short, pithy to wrap it up with a bow. You can find this episode's minimal maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com/podcast

• 19:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox for free, including seven new maxims every Monday. If you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.com, we'll never send you spam or junk or ads, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. All right, question of the week this week. In what ways are you abnormal? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? Now, before we get to our pithy answers, let's hear what some of our audience had to say. Alexis said, I think I'm abnormal because I have a lot of precautionary fears. That term is so fascinating. Precautionary fears. She says, I am always thinking of

• 19:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  ways that other people can screw me over. The benefits are, I am prepared mentally, physically, and emotionally, since I come up with multiple scenarios. But the downsides, I over prepare and over analyze a lot, which can be exhausting. Then I still have a hard time letting go because I have prepared so much that even if it doesn't play out in a certain way, my brain doesn't let it go because it could have gone differently. TK, why might it be a bad idea to prepare for every potential disaster?

• 20:20Speaker 02

  You spend valuable resources on things that simply might not be worth your time, energy, and attention. So you take the concept of insurance. You can purchase insurance for anything. If you're willing to pay, someone's willing to take your money for the sake of insuring something. If I want to, I can insure this coffee cup. Now suppose I looked at everything in my life as if Need it to be insured, not just the car, not just the house or whatever it may be, everything. I'm gonna spend a lot of money and I'm gonna spend it on things that are pretty easy to replace if they break. But if I cash in on the insurance for this, you know, I gotta file the claim, I gotta do all of these things. And I run into this highly inefficient process where even though everything is insured,

• 21:03Speaker 02

  I'm spending so much energy to ensure it, so much energy to make a claim on my insurance, that my life is inefficient and it's taking me away from things that are more worth my creative energy. And so there's, it's awesome that you can develop the skill of coming up with solutions to problems. But creativity and problem solving aren't the same thing. Problem solving is the management or elimination of that which is not wanted. Creativity is the bringing forth of that which is wanted. Becoming an excellent problem solver isn't a substitute for developing the kind of mindset and the kind of habits that allow you to be the kind of creator that can introduce new possibilities. So how are your possibilities?

• 21:44Speaker 02

  How are your, how is your ability to introduce new possibilities to life being compromised by focusing solely on problem solving?

• 21:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, Steve, it seems to me there's a lot of problems in our mind that never manifest in the, the real world.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a direct parallel here just in abstract philosophy that I, that I can resonate with the, the individual asked the question. So skepticism is a powerful method in philosophy. Skepticism meaning you, you're debating whether or not some proposition is true. And you wanna go, I wanna poke holes in that proposition. Let's figure out all the ways that that idea could be wrong. And, and it's very powerful for figuring out why you believe what you believe. Incredibly important to the method of philosophy is skepticism. However, It can go too far. So I've got my coffee mug here. I can say, okay, why do I believe that this coffee mug exists?

• 22:41Speaker 04

  Well, I'm having a certain amount of sensations and like, I think that there's this coffee mug out there, but maybe I'm not sure because maybe I could be dreaming. Or maybe actually what happened is TK slipped me a magic mushroom earlier this morning and I'm hallucinating. It's possible, it's logically possible, but is that reasonable? And something that happens in philosophy, especially with young people who are just been exposed to philosophy, is they get paralyzed by these possibilities. Well, how do I, maybe I am hallucinating, maybe I am in a dream. How would we know? And they get crippled. And this is called sometimes, they get stuck in Cartesian skepticism where they think, well, I can't actually know anything that exists outside of my mind. And I can't, I can't learn anything about the world.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  And I think that's very isolating. I think, I think it can lead to a kind of nihilism, almost into kind of anti-intellectualism as well, because it stunts people's thinking about things. Well, why am I going to bother trying to learn about the world if I really fundamentally don't know anything? Because I might be a brain in a jar somewhere that is just hallucinating all of my experiences. So you have to have judgment to say, okay, these ideas that I'm thinking about could be wrong. Here's why they could be wrong. And then I have to assess the realisticness or the probability that they are wrong. And what you'll find is there's all kinds of things we take for granted that we don't have 100% certainty on. But it's okay to take them for granted because they're probably true.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  So 80% likely true, 90% likely true. You know, the floor is not going to cave in underneath me. If I'm thinking, but it might, and here's the situations where it might, what if the person didn't construct it the right way? That's going to give me a lot of anxiety versus recognizing, yes, this is a possibility. I could fall through the floor, but I'm not going to devote limited brain space to seriously obsessing over that.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  Possibility that it might happen, but it's got such a minute chance of happening that it's not really worth thinking about.

• 24:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you couldn't do anything else if you were fairly certain that floor was getting ready to cave in. You're not going to keep recording this podcast. Why would you, right? And so that's why it can be especially paralyzing. And the story that we tell ourselves, I often say to worry is to pray for something bad to happen. Because what happens is like, even if it doesn't come true, like, these people are going to screw me over. I get that because people will screw you over sometimes. But it's unreasonable, to use your word, to think that everyone's going to potentially screw me over. So much so that it adds so much uncertainty to our lives. It's paralyzing. We all have a fundamental need for certainty. And I think it varies person to person. There are some people who are really into exciting,

• 25:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  thrill-seeking, bungee jumping, parachuting, and skydiving, all of these things that you want a higher level of uncertainty, right? But even within that, you have to have a base level of certainty. You're not going to jump out of the plane without the parachute and say, I'm just going to figure it out on the way down. And yet, that's what we're doing all the time. We're making up these stories about everyone is out to get me. It is true. It could be possible, but it's unreasonable to think that everyone is out to get me. I also think about post-traumatic growth. I don't know if you know this phenomenon. Who's the researcher who did this? Richard something? But he was showing that 60, upwards of two-thirds of people, basically, after they go through a really traumatic, life-altering

• 26:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  experience, they grow as a side effect of that. It improves their life in some way. This thing that is devastating, you think, my life is over, it's ruined. It often makes our life better. However, that also means that somewhere around a third of people are still devastated by it. They hold on to it, and it alters the way that they think about other people, or other things, or similar circumstances. So what happens when someone screws you over? You learn from it, and maybe you grow, or maybe you learn from it, and you say, the lesson here is that everyone's going to screw me over. TK, what do you do in that scenario when everyone is out to get me now because one person screwed me over?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Well, it's easier to be rational when people are presenting positive possibilities than it is when they're presenting negative possibilities. If I walked up to you or anyone and said, hey, guess what, man? You're gonna win the lottery this week. You're gonna become a millionaire. That's a real possibility, but no one's gonna believe it because they're gonna have a healthful dose of skepticism. They're gonna say, nah, I need evidence for that. It can't just be a mere possibility. But then when it comes to the negative, I can say, everyone's gonna try to screw you over. Now, just from a standard, just from like a basic logical standard, that can't be true. It can't be the case that everyone's gonna try to screw you over because some people

• 27:22Speaker 02

  are actually incentivized by selfish reasons to be good to you, not because they love you, but there's no way they can get what they want other than by honoring your rights and treating you with respect. You think your barista actually loves you? But it's so it's, but it's. Who's gonna tell him?

• 27:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  She thinks I'm cute, TK.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, she thinks I'm cute.

• 27:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  She said so, okay? She wrote a heart on my cup. I think she loves me.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Heart on the cup. I love that. Oh, man, she wrote a heart on your cup. But, you know, it's a funny thing. So we easily accept these negative propositions, you know, without demanding evidence. And I don't think the solution is, well, be positive. The solution is be as skeptical of that negative stuff as you are of that positive stuff and say, hey, look, it's possible that the people I encountered today may try to screw me over. It's possible that they may try to help me. We'll deal with each instance as it comes and I trust in my ability to exercise discernment and to be improvisational to navigate every situation accordingly. But when it comes to these questions of regret, here's the question I would ask myself. You can't ask, what if this guy tries to screw me over?

• 28:32Speaker 02

  But you can also ask, what if this guy is trying to really do something good for me? And I'm so busy trying to protect myself from being screwed over that I miss out on the opportunity? And I look back on that moment and say, I regret not making something awesome happen because I was too defensive. I made this mistake early on in business. I overvalued things that I had to offer. I overvalued what I was trying to sell. And people who are older than me, smarter than me, more successful than me, were trying to help me out. But I was too busy being defensive because I thought someone was taking advantage of me. And I looked back on the moment and said, man, that dude was trying to open a major door for me that could have changed my life. And I was trying to be defensive.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  I wish I could have that moment back. So what if the hole in the floor doesn't open up? What if something bad doesn't happen? Is it possible that you might regret wasting your time and not doing what you could have done to enjoy that moment? Or made the most of that moment because you were too busy preparing for a disaster that never occurred?

• 29:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think of the line between skepticism and cynicism. I use those terms colloquially, but to me skepticism is kind of this healthy questioning of, okay, what are this person's intentions? So I can set it down. But if I'm cynical, everyone's out to get me, sort of thing. Rob Bell often says that cynicism is laziness. It's because it's dismissing. It shuts things down, right? And it could be anything from, oh, must be nice. Like, that's a cynical way to shut down or to maybe put yourself up on a pedestal. And so there are these shutdown phrases like, oh, fine, or get over it, or whatever. And now, all of a sudden, I've shut down the conversation.

• 30:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I've not left any room for skepticism, healthy questioning of a thing, because I need to protect myself. So I just shut the whole thing down. Do you have any thoughts on that?

• 30:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, again, it happens all the time in philosophy. We were just talking about this over the last couple of days, that when having a conversation with somebody and you're investigating their ideas, you can ask questions of them that will put them on the defensive.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  Even basic questions like, "What do you mean by that?" Can be interpreted in a threatening way where like, "Oh geez, I don't know what I mean." "Oh, I'm gonna be exposed as somebody who maybe hasn't, isn't as well thought out as I'd like to pretend to be." But you see, you see in the world of ideas, one of the, one of these shutdown phrases that comes up all the time, even in our culture, is, "Well, that's just your truth." "That's just, that's just your opinion." And that's an attempt to say, "Okay, I don't wanna, I don't wanna keep going down this road. And I wanna do the difficult, painful analytical work. We're just gonna try to have a truce and say, 'Okay, that's just your truth.'" AKA, kinda shut up and let's, let's move along. And there's a time and a place for that, right? You know, we will agree to disagree, there's a time and a place for that.

• 31:29Speaker 04

  But it can also be a cop-out that really does shut down critical thinking. If you are wrong about something that's important and somebody's pointing it out, well, they could be doing you a favor. So, I've definitely seen that in my life, not just in the professional pursuits, that, you know, if, if you're, if you, if, the individuals that are shutting down things by saying, "Okay, that's just your idea. I have my idea, let's go on our own ways." That, that can be, that can result in an unskillfully lived life, let's put it that way.

• 31:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah, and I think the same is true when I'm always thinking everyone is out to get me, in a way. And I get that, I understand that thing, it's a protective mechanism. I want to be safe, and there are times, I grew up in a really poor neighborhood and it wasn't particularly violent, but relative to where I live now, like, you had to watch your back in a way that was not, um, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to do today, right? It becomes commonplace, but after a while, you start to think, like, "Who's out to get me?" Or, "Oh, he stepped on my shoe, what does that mean?" Right? What's the meaning of that? If I'm at, across the street at the coffee shop now, someone steps on my shoe, I don't think there's any meaning to it. It's an accident, right? But I could, I could ascribe some sort of meaning, like, "Oh, it's a threat, he's testing me.

• 32:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  He's testing my manhood, or he's, he's trying to attack me in some way, or he's trying to one-up me." I can, I can catastrophize everything. And then you're living with your nervous system on edge all the time. And that's not a way that I want to live. Rachel said she answered this question, in what ways are you abnormal? She said, I dislike the term abnormal. Aren't we all just unique? Normal doesn't really exist, just like his coffee cup. Normal does not exist. I hear you, Rachel. I also have terms I dislike. Branding as a marketing term, really hate that one. Oh, yuck.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Why do you hate branding?

• 33:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, I think of the way that it's often used. We talk about a personal brand. This is my brand. And it's millennial speak now for, I don't know, business acumen. And I don't, the way that it's used often just turns me off.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  It's right up there with deliverable. It's become part of the corporate speak.

• 33:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah. Impact as a verb, that is, that drives me nuts, right? And what else? What else? Oh, content to describe any creation just nails on a chalkboard for me. It gives me the ick when I hear someone talking about content creation. Isn't that redundant? So Rachel, I totally get where you're coming from, not liking the term abnormal. Steve is our adjunct mathematician here.

• 34:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Does normal exist?

• 34:19Speaker 04

  How long do I have?

• 34:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  60 seconds, go.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 34:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I just need 60 seconds.

• 34:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Why might being abnormal not be a bad thing?

• 34:32Speaker 04

  Is that directed at me?

• 34:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  Well, I think that it is, reality is so complex. It's so preposterously complex that we need a lot of different angles on, on it to try to understand what it is and how it works. That's kind of how I approach things. So I'm in the middle of opening a research institute right now. It's called the Natural Philosophy Institute, hoping to go live in a couple of months here. And what I want to be doing professionally is researching with other experts in their domains to work through different topics and different subjects. And a feature, a feature is a different methodology from my own. Because it's not actually, I know what I think. I know why I believe what I believe. I obsess about these things for hours and hours and hours.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  So I don't need to hear somebody just repeat back to me something I ought to believe. Where the value is, is it precisely having an unusual or different perspective from mine? So I think that's a, I wouldn't, I wouldn't hire somebody that is just gonna repeat back to me what I think is true. I want to hear, where do we disagree? Give me the disagreement and the uniqueness. Give me some challenge and feedback and pushback. And that's where I think real learning happens.

• 35:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Totally. TK, I, I use that word abnormal in the question of the week when I said, in what ways are you abnormal? And it sounds, it sounds to me like Rachel heard it as like, which ways are you wrong? Or broken or incorrect? And I think that is often how we use that word. So I can understand her allergy to that word. But if you're being charitable to me, what do you think I meant when I put that word in the question of the week? In what ways are you abnormal?

• 36:14Speaker 04

  In what ways do you think or act that other people may find to be surprising? Unexpected, unexpected or unorthodox? I would take it that way. But I, but I resonate with her feeling there because there is a certain sense in which abnormal, being abnormal is an illusion. If it, if it keeps us from seeing that everyone has it. I do have a problem with there being some people who think of themselves as being abnormal and everyone else is merely normal. I think we are all normal relative to properties and attributes we have in common. And we are all abnormal relative to those properties and attributes that are unique to us. And I'm sure you guys have both seen this.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  There is a pattern of the people who are pursuing normalcy that makes them abnormal in a negative sense. So if you're so scared of being perceived as abnormal that you can give yourself a complex, I think the better way to approach living and thinking and being around people is just embrace the abnormalness. Because if there really is, I mean, everybody really is abnormal. If you get to know anybody, especially this guy, there's like a bunch of weird things about him. It turns out that the abnormal is kind of normal. So if you're trying to give the appearance of normalcy and everything's put together at all times, that's actually weird. And it's not a good headspace to be in. And you're gonna give yourself some sort of psychological complex.

• 37:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And some people embrace that pejorative of weird. I was like, yeah, I'm just weird. And so it all depends on, am I gonna wear this as a badge of honor? Or am I going to take it as an insult? For me, the abnormalcy started with the whole eschewing consumerism. Because when I climbed the corporate ladder and I sort of got everything I ever wanted, it turns out everything I ever wanted wasn't what I wanted. All of the trinkets of success didn't make me feel better, happier, blissed out. In fact, I was more stressed and in more debt than ever. But ostensibly, I was successful within the normal bounds of success. The magazine advertisement of success, I fit a lot of that criteria.

• 38:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  The suit, the watch, the car, the house in the suburbs, et cetera. And I realized I was living this normal life. But if consumerism is the norm, then I want to be flamboyantly abnormal. And that was my pithy answer to this question. Because if debt is normal, I want to be abnormal. If anxiety and stress and discontent is normal, then I want to be abnormal. If spending money that I don't have on things I don't need to impress people I'll never meet is normal, then I'd like to be abnormal. Right? I don't want to be normal if normal is broke and miserable. I want to be abnormal if the norms are...

• 39:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, if they're giving me grief or they're upsetting me in some way.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  That's what I always say about being informed, you know, this world kind of defines informed as being aware of everything that's happening in pop culture, being up to date on your TMZ, being up to date on every little, you know, superficial controversy, most of which you can't do anything about. And I often say, if that's what being informed is, I am blissfully ignorant. I choose to be informed by focusing on paying attention to studying, reflecting on the things that are important to me and the things that help me understand my universe in the sense where I can do something about it. So that's how I feel about being informed, how you feel about being normal.

• 39:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah, I want to be, I want to be abnormal when normal no longer suits me.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  And it can be unskillful to try to bring other people into your abnormality. So I have a funny story. I haven't told you this TK, but this is, this happened several years ago. So I did not take my mother's advice that not everybody needs what you need here. So I was invited to give a talk and it was just about philosophy and, you know, trying to make a career at the independent pursuit of truth and, you know, doing blogging and podcasting, that type of thing, how that works. And I'm really excited by philosophy and me projecting onto others. I'm like, you really should be too. Philosophy is awesome.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  So I give a talk and then, so at the end of it, I was taking questions and then the, everything went well. And then after it was over, there was a lady that brought her daughter up and the daughter was, I want to say nine. And she was so sweet. And then it was sort of like this, you know, the mother's bringing the child along, okay, ask her question. And so at the end, she's like, okay, what, what is philosophy? I'm like, oh, that's, oh, you set me up. You ready for this? I got this great thing for you. I love that. He knows where this is going. So, so I'm trying to be like, okay, little girl, let me tell you.

• 41:13Speaker 04

  So it's like philosophical, here's a philosophical question, like, what is a number?

• 41:20Speaker 04

  And I go, and I'm thinking like, like, for example, you know, we have a physical, physical thing like this, like there's a cup, you know, you can put a cup in your back pocket. Can you put the number eight in your back pocket? And she looked like I just ran over her puppy or something. She was like, what is a number? I was like, uh oh, okay. Not everybody needs what you need, Steve. It was like terrible scarring first introduction to philosophy to this poor little girl. Sorry if you're listening. That was, that was a wrong introduction to philosophy. This was an error of trying to think, isn't my, isn't this abnormality great? Let me bring you into this world. This is so exciting. And like, she's never going to open that door again because, you know, I terrified her.

• 42:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I find this happens with minimalism all the time where all of a sudden someone's spouse, you know, say your wife finds minimalism and all of a sudden you've had 40 years of cluttering your house together and then over one weekend she wants to get rid of everything or vice versa. This is gender neutral. And what happens is like, it becomes traumatizing. So I'm going to bring you into my abnormality by force. And it's like, well, no, that's theft. You're actually just stealing your husband's stuff and giving it to the goodwill. You're not, you're not, because you're robbing him of the dignity of being able to let go on his own. And, and same with this girl. I thought where you were going with that is like, oh crap, I just gave an hour long talk and I didn't explain what philosophy.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  And I'm sure the mother was like, what kind of an answer was that? Totally justified.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  You know, but my version of that is, uh, I love horror movies. Michelle just can't stand them. Any bit is too much. And, uh, but the funny thing is she loves for me to tell her what happened, what happened to the man walking down the long corridor.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  And so she will literally sit there and have me tell her the entire horror movie. I can be like, all right, I've been talking too much. It's 15 minutes. Let me just race through it. She's like, no, no, no, no, I want to know it like scene by scene. So she wants to hear it, but she doesn't want to watch it. And so one of the lessons I gather from that is instead of trying to force other people to be excited about what you're excited about and try, instead of trying to make them be, you know, embrace your abnormalities, you can just allow them to experience the benefits that your abnormalities bring to the situation to the degree that they can handle it. And if we don't require people to be able to handle or hold all of us, we can allow them to experience those aspects of us. That do genuinely excite them and we can reserve the rest for, you know, whoever else or whatever else.

• 43:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, forcing someone, forcing everyone else to be an outlier than sort of by definition makes no one an outlier. Let's do one more here. This one's from Naomi. Naomi says, "I feel abnormal because I love silence. I realize very few people can be in front of a beautiful landscape without having to say something about it or having a conversation, which used to drive me crazy when I would sit alone in communion with nature. And then all of a sudden, a group of tourists arrive from nowhere and start chatting. My current luxury is to live in one of the most uncool neighborhoods of my city, but it's so quiet

• 44:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and beautiful that it gives me a sense of peace and harmony." TK, you and I both enjoy silence a lot. And so this resonates with me. I was at a coffee shop this weekend. We're outside. It's at Three Birds up in Ojai. And they have this beautiful like garden area with all these seats. And this woman comes up table right next to me, puts her phone call on speakerphone. And I'm there trying to read the Paris Review. And all of a sudden, it's just, it sounds like, and I can't get it out of my head. It's like the peanuts or something. And I, it's like, oh, what happened to my silence? My precious silence was taken away from me. But I'm with Naomi here. She makes me wonder, when did peace and harmony become uncool? She said she moved to the uncool neighborhood

• 45:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  to get peace and harmony. That seems pretty cool to me.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think peace and solitude has always been cool. And, and, and the world has conditioned us to be afraid of it. It's sort of like, um, our freedom lies in that direction. But we have been told a story about how if we move in that direction, it will destroy us. And so I think she's the one that's on to something. But you know, here's a funny little story for me about how my pursuit of silence got interrupted and maybe something that we can learn from it. So I went to the chapel once to pray. And I went at a time where I knew no one else would be there. So I could enjoy some silence and meditation. And so I'm there and five minutes, I'm blissed out exactly how I imagined it would be.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  And then this woman comes in there and she's carrying this big bag with a bunch of stuff. And so there's already a lot of rustling when she walks into the chapel, which is all right. That's fine. But then she drops a bunch of things out of her bag. And so there's this really loud noise and she doesn't just drop them. She's like, oh gee, oh my, oh my gosh. And so she's very vocal about what she drops. And it's like, it's fine. It's all right. She picks up her things and I'm, you know, I'm just sort of like focused on me, right? Like, okay, she's fine, you know? And then she, she goes to light a candle and she doesn't see anything. None of the candles are lit. She doesn't have, she's like, where are the matches? And she's, she's talking all out loud about all of her things. She's like, where are the matches? And oh gosh, I can't find any matches.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  And I'm like, there's actually a lighter, you know, right there. She's like, oh, thank you so much. And, and she carries on like this and it just so happens that everything she's doing is so loud. And I'm in this paradoxical position of I'm here to connect spiritually and I'm just feeling so unspiritual about her loudness. And after she's done with all that commotion, I just feel in my heart, the desire to ask her a question. I said, hey, is there anything I can pray for, for you? And she begins to bawl her eyes out and she doesn't go on for a long time. But she tells me about a couple of really difficult things that she's going through. And that's why she came there to say a prayer. And I said, okay, I can, how about I just pray with you right now?

• 47:32Speaker 02

  And we prayed together and she went on her way. And I thought to myself, man, life has an amazing way of teaching us lessons. Here I am thinking that silence was the thing, but connection was the thing. And silence is the means to connection. And so sometimes when people don't get the thing that we get, instead of being self righteous about it or judgmental towards them, it could be an opportunity to say, maybe this is an opportunity for me to connect with them by giving them a little charity, a little compassion, and letting grace have an opportunity to do its thing.

• 48:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What'd she do when you stole her purse?

• 48:21Speaker 04

  I quit.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  I quit, I'm walking out.

• 48:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I was hoping that's where it was going.

• 48:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, Steve, I guess you're the new co-host.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

• 48:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  This has been like an eight-year plot, just to get on this. This is TK.

• 48:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  See, this is my abnormality. I ruin the most heartfelt stories. This is me and Nicodemus doing this all the time. When my mom, when my mom died, I hid a little urn of ashes and he like, he went, he went into my apartment, put his name tag on it and like, he pretended he was dating my mom for months afterward. And yeah, it's just, this is how I deal with trauma, okay? It's with, with humor. And so, um, forgive me TK for I have sinned.

• 49:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Woo, I'll get us back on track here. I already gave you my, my pithy answer and it had something to do with, oh, when consumerism is the norm, it pays to be flamboyantly abnormal. I think that's true in a bunch of places. So Steve, before we get to TK's pithy answer, what do you think with respect to like, where does it pay to be abnormal?

• 49:35Speaker 04

  Well, if the question is where does it pay? It pays, uh, really well in everywhere that it is, uh, skillfully recognized and embraced. So if you think about, you know, the distribution of paychecks, we're talking money. The person who is an outlier, who is abnormal, who's not doing the thing that most of the people in the organization are doing, but they're actually on to something, they're tracking something, they have an insight, they have a skill that's unusual. Well, that's where the paycheck goes up because you're bringing something that's unique to an organization. Is an entrepreneur, somebody that is, uh, an outlier or is that the norm? Well, there, that's an, that is kind of an outlier individual to be an employer, employer and not an employee.

• 50:20Speaker 04

  That makes somebody an outlier. And where's the biggest paycheck go? Does it go to the employees or does it go to the employee? Well, generally, if an organization is skillfully run, it's the owner, it's the employer that is making the largest checks. So if the question is about where does it pay? I think that is, that's kind of what you're after. If you think about it in terms of financial markets, you have some unique insight into a commodity that you think is underpriced. You think the market, that most of the people are valuing this asset at a certain amount. I think it's actually underpriced. You take a risk, you take a gamble, you buy the asset. Let's say you hold on to it and sure enough, it goes up. Well, you are the outlier in the short run. And then the market recognizes, okay, the outliers were correct here. And then the price goes up and you make money. That would be an example.

• 51:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. TK, bring us home here. Let's get back to the, the question of the week. In what ways are you abnormal? And what are the benefits? What are the downsides?

• 51:13Speaker 02

  So my pithy maxim is that needing less company doesn't mean giving less love. One of the ways in which I am abnormal is that I'm so deeply introverted that if I love you, there's a really good chance I have never missed you. I appreciate you. I'm glad when you're there, but I've probably never had enough space from you where I got to a point where I would say, I'd rather connect with that person than be alone. And it's not that I can't get to that point. It's just that the world is not set up in such a way that I will ever get to that point before I need it. You know, I'll never get to that point late. And so that creates difficulty for me

• 51:56Speaker 02

  because it can be very hard with the, with the certain types of people to convince them that I really do love you. I really do value you. I don't know if I ever want to hang out with you, but you're an amazing human being and I care a lot about you. If there's ever anything I can do to support you, I totally got your back. But no, I've probably never missed you.

• 52:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK and I are very similar in this way.

• 52:21Speaker 04

  He said that to you directly and I'm like, hang on, is he telling him I don't value? I don't want to be here because that was very convincing.

• 52:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK knows that doesn't offend me at all.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  One of, uh, like, like my first month or so here, I go, um, partially out of just kind of habit, you know? We're both getting ready to go out the door at the same time. I say, you want to have lunch or together or you just rather be by yourself? He goes, I'd rather be by myself. Thank you.

• 52:49Speaker 04

  The beginning of a deep friendship. That's good.

• 52:51Speaker 02

  I fell in love with the guy immediately.

• 52:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our friendship gets deeper the less time we spend with each other.

• 52:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, I've been, I mean, that's the thing, though. I mean, what do they say that closeness breeds discontent as well? I think there's, if you take anything to its terminus, even for someone who's like extremely extroverted, like Nicodemus is, Ryan Nicodemus, our founder of The Mentalist, like, he's so extroverted. His idea of spending alone time is like him and three people. And it's like, as long as it's four or fewer people, it's basically alone time. And so for him, it's his, his way, but he also recognizes, he's, I guess, at least astute enough to understand that, okay, not everyone needs what I need. Right? And because I need to be with people to connect for that energy, some people like TK

• 53:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  or Josh get that energy from just being alone. How about you? Do you, would you say that you're, you're more introverted in that respect?

• 53:50Speaker 04

  Very much so. Yeah. Yeah. I always have been, and though there are some exceptions, and one of the reasons I have a love-hate relationship with TK Coleman is that the friendships that I have, I find I generally bond through mutual intellectual stimulation. And it's love-hate because in, I walk away from conversations with TK being invigorated. And that's how people describe normal friendships, right? You get invigorated through the interaction. I 100% feel that way. However, the hate part of the relationship is that that's after six hours plus of talking about very heavy metaphysics about how one senses concepts. And this is very important.

• 54:35Speaker 04

  And it's, and it's as an example of many, many, many examples of this. And I was actually just talking to my wife, Julia, about this last night, because I was saying, you know, she was saying, how did your conversation with TK go? And I said, well, it went exactly as you expected. You know, we spoke for about six hours about things. And, and I said, TK is, I think, the only person that I've met that I sort of feel like, if you've been around addicts.

• 55:04Speaker 04

  Okay, addicts, addicts build cultures around themselves where addicts have a way of talking with addicts, making each other feel comfortable. It's a shared culture. Okay. But it's kind of toxic, right?

• 55:18Speaker 04

  The only other person I have ever met where I feel like you share a similar addiction, to me, that's in these conversations with TK where I walk away, where we're talking about these things, I'm invigorated, I gotta rush. I'm like, my brain's going crazy. And I'm like, hang on a second, is this healthy?

• 55:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 55:36Speaker 04

  It's like, we, I would say this is sort of like, would you say that you get, you get deep stimulation from ideas?

• 55:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Absolutely.

• 55:45Speaker 04

  That's very clear. I do too. Like, too much. Okay, so it's, it's a real, it's a real phenomenon.

• 55:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's so fascinating. I hate ideas. I, I, I was telling Matt this the other day, like, and I think part of it is, it just depends on what the idea is. And I've been on so many book tours where, this has happened more than once, where someone will come up to like, the autograph line at the end. And they're like, hey, I've got a really great idea for a book. And what they're really saying is, hey, Josh, can you spend the next two years of your life manifesting my idea? That's obviously not, that's not what's going on here. But like, to me, ideas are worth next to nothing. It's the execution of the idea that is, that is worth something. Although I really deeply admire the, the, the fact that you guys can just sort of like,

• 56:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  you know, I'm trying not to use a sexual term, but you guys could.

• 56:42Speaker 04

  You've got the heavy drug in the sex analogy. For our mutual addiction.

• 56:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'd love to hear him have a conversation with Peter Rollins. Do you know Peter Rollins? Pyro theologian. He is, he's, he's been a guest on this podcast more than anyone else. That used to be TK's title. He was here 11 times and eventually he just stayed. And so I think Peter's been on the show maybe six or seven times at this point. And he's really fascinating. And the last time he was on here, he was talking about community versus. Communion and how community unites around something and communion is to unite around a shared lack and kind of what you're talking about there is like there's a communion of ideas. Mutual lack of common sense, mutual lack of practicality, we're lacking all kinds of

• 57:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  things together. So like church does this, it's like a lack, you know, the, the death of God or whatever. Or it is like AA does this, like there's this lack in me, we're all, none of us are the same. And we come from different backgrounds, different religious traditions, whatever, but we all have this shared lack. And I would say minimalism often does that as well. When we talk about minimalism, it's often people from a bunch of different backgrounds and they're all sort of coming to like our live events, for example, and they're saying, you know what, I feel this deep void in me, this emptiness and everyone experiences some bit of emptiness. And a lot of people in our modern society try to fill it the normal way through trinkets,

• 58:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  through accumulation, through the acquisition of things and status and, and more, more, more, more, consumerism, the ideology that more will make me complete or happy. And there's a lack there. And what they find out is it doesn't fill the, the void, it widens it. And I, I find that maybe that's where the discontent here is like these ideas, it doesn't give me this sense of completion. It gives me more questions in a way. It, it, it gives me a literal, literal stimulation. It's, it's, people talk about information junkies. That's a real phenomenon. You're, you're consuming all the news and it's invigorating. It's exciting. It's the same type of thrill. It's a, it's a genuine, like it's a

• 58:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  rush to have some of these conversations, you know? And so anyway, at the end of that story, I was talking to my wife and I said, truthfully, I think I told you this actually in the, in the last episode you were, you were referencing and our, and our discussion about theological matters. I said, I'm not, I'm not actually sure if this is pathological, unironically, unironically, I really don't know. When it's, when, when every time you get together and you get the opportunity, it's like, wow, this was awesome. And then like we go down all these rabbit holes and you know, you're exhilarated and it's like, is that normal? Like, is that okay? Is it, I don't know. I'm going to ask you, Tika, we're, we're outliers. We're both kind of, we're philosophy junkies. You think it's a little too extreme? Absolutely not.

• 59:39Speaker 04

  See, he's got a problem.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  I haven't the slightest bit of doubt that it even might be. I am 100% fully confident that it is not only permissible, but that it is virtuous, that it is a good. And not everyone needs to embody that good, but I, I never sit around wondering, do I like oxygen too much? I mean, I literally want to breathe it every second. And every time I breathe it, it feels good and I feel better than when I hold my breath. No, man. I think it's amazing. I think if you demand that other people be like that, then there will be a problem in how you treat others. But I think in the spirit of find the others, when you connect with the like soul who enjoys some of the same things you've been designed to enjoy, I think there's a mutual celebration. Now, of course, we can be roommates

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  because we wouldn't get anything else done, probably.

• 1:00:28Speaker 04

  Roommates, true.

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, but.

• 1:00:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  He's, he's the hot girl that you spend a weekend with a couple of times a year and you just go do heroin all weekend.

• 1:00:38Speaker 04

  There you go. That's, I'm getting, there's something. Did you hear how he was talking about that? He's like, it's like oxygen. I don't want to be without oxygen. Okay. See what I'm pointing out?

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  But addictions have to have regrets and crashes. Those are one of the essential features of an addiction. How do you?

• 1:00:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll do this later. What I'm saying is that if you just did heroin once or twice a year, you're probably going to be fine. For most people, it turns into an addiction that completely subsumes their life.

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  And this is why it is true to say, not everybody needs what we need. And if they did, truthfully, planes would start falling out of the sky. Right? Because you can't have the pilot and the co-pilot start talking about what numbers are and they lose track of that they're flying a plane because they're, they're getting their fix talking about, you know, these stimulating ideas. It really is something. We have to say, okay, we live in a society, people are very different. There's all kinds of skills that people have and, and you don't want to be in a world in which everybody's just like you and has all the, the desires and the drives and the goals that you have. That's not a world that we want to live in.

• 1:01:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, spot on. How about you listeners? Let's answer the question of the week. Here in what ways are you abnormal? And what way does that benefit you? What are the downside? Let us know your thoughts in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, you can join for free. And while you're over there on Patreon for free, TK and I just did a new audiobook. It's called Very Very Simple. The title's ironic because like, what's simpler than simple? It's very simple. What's simpler than that? Very, very simple. And I'll tell you this TK, when we recorded the audiobook, and it's about 100 minutes long. At the end of it, I was like, man, that's like, it mixed the practical, like the sort of decluttering tips side of things, like going through your house and decluttering with the philosophical.

• 1:02:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's the book that I wish I would have put out 15 years ago at the beginning of the minimalist. And it took 15 years to sort of solidify a lot of these ideas. It's 12 tools for a simpler life. There's sort of tools, rules, heuristics. There are adjustable boundaries, no dogmas really, but just a boundaries you can apply to your own life. And then TK and I recorded like a little mini podcast between each one. At the end of it TK, you were like, hey, that was actually one of my favorite things that we've done. I was really shocked to hear that.

• 1:02:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know how long it took us to record it, but I felt like it was over in five minutes. I came in here prepared for a long day. All right, I'm gonna sit here while he reads it. Then we're gonna talk and then he'll read some more. You know, let's put in the work and get this done because this is what we need to do. But I was like, wait, it's over? It's already over? That was pretty fun.

• 1:03:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, it was, it was a real joy. And I went back and listened to it when it came out. And man, you were the best part of the whole thing. It was so good. Like I brought these like sort of practical tips to the table. And it's like a ebook you can download for free or the audiobook you can also download for free at very, very simple.com. But at the end of it, I was listening to it. I'm like, man, like I just really, I wish I would have had this 20 years ago. It would have helped my life immensely. And I actually got a publishing offer from Macmillan Audio and we decided to turn that down and put it out for a limited time for free. So folks can, we wanted to give it to our existing audience for free. You can download it right now over at very, very.

• 1:04:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Simple.com. All right, that's almost the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to Steve, but first, real quick, we do this little segment called Right Here, Right Now. We talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalists today, which is February 2. Enrollment opens for our decluttering course. It's called Simplify Everything. Me and Ryan and TK, about a year ago, we came in here with Jordan and the rest of our team, and we filmed this five-week course. And I will say it's the most comprehensive thing that we've ever done. We've never done a course before, anything like that. And we knew if we were going to do it 15 years in, we wanted to do it right. So Nicodemus really stole the show on that one, but I

• 1:04:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  really enjoyed our participation with all three of us. And so it's not just about physical clutter. That's the first week. We also go through emotional clutter, mental clutter, financial clutter, digital clutter, career clutter, calendar clutter, and even relationship clutter. It's five distinct weeks, 17 video lessons, 45 clutter problem areas, 135 decluttering solutions, and 50 minimalism resources. Also, you get a 30-page workbook, and you could interact with all the other students. We just opened it up for 72 hours. You can find all the details, including you can watch the trailer, you can read all the graduate testimonials, all of that over at SimplifyCourse.com. We'll

• 1:05:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  put a link to that in the show notes. Much more coming up, Steve, but first, here's a minimalist tip from one of our listeners.

• 1:05:32Speaker 05

  Hi, Ryan, Josh, and TK. This is Thomas Lu, founder of The Sustainabilityist and author of The Personal Sustainability Handbook. I am one of those quiet followers who ascribe to minimalism long before I knew it. So I would like to share a bit about how minimalism can be a key to sustainability, but which is often overlooked. In our personal lives, we see how too much, like too much food, too many possessions, and too many toxic people, can lead to overwhelm. There are many people and activists who aspire to save the world, but who often don't realize that they haven't gotten their own acts together first. But here's the thing, this bloat goes much beyond the individual level. If you look at our large-scale systems, like our policies, industries, population, and

• 1:06:17Speaker 05

  economy, they're often heading toward chaos because they've become too complex and oversized. When things are becoming too bloated, they can also become potential points of failure. So this is why I believe that for those who sincerely believe in a sustainable world, they have to take minimalism as a founding principle, not just for their lives, but everything humans do. Anyway, just some thoughts that you may be interesting in exploring further. Thanks for your great work and an awesome day to you all.

• 1:06:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Thomas, thank you so much for that amazing comment. First off, was that Steve who left that message? I thought it was him for a second. And also, it felt like it touched on some things that you often talk about in terms of, I mean, you may not use the same words. He's talking about bloat and complexities at a system level, but that's often, well, a lot of your work revolves around trying to untangle the complexities within an existing system. So maybe you could talk about that a bit, the simplification that needs to happen at a system level, whether it's politics, culture, or society.

• 1:07:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, so there's a very common pattern in the world of ideas, which is overcomplication. And when you're examining the quality of an idea or a theory, one of the red flags is that it gets overcomplicated or that the person who is proposing the idea can't explain what they're trying to say simply. They have to use a bunch of jargon that maybe doesn't quite fit right. Or they're saying, well, I sort of have this idea, but like you have to read 15 books to really understand what I'm talking about. That's a red flag. You go, okay, this is a bloated theory, to use his language. And I've seen this just a common pattern across domains that if you want to apply the lens of skepticism, like we were talking about earlier, to ideas,

• 1:08:01Speaker 04

  then one of the great ways to do it is to examine those ideas which sound excessively bloated. And then, in the history of ideas, it's very common that breakthrough ideas will take that complexity and then they'll simplify. Well, it's a simpler principle here. It's not this thing and that thing and this thing. It's actually one underlying principle. You go, ah, it looks obvious in hindsight. So that's a critical part of, you know, theory development is taking that bloat and making it simple.

• 1:08:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Without making it simplistic, I think is the key here, right? Because we can oversimplify things to a point where it renders something useless. I think about floss versus rope. So complex just means to interweave two or more things together, right? And simplex, to simplify, means to sort of untangle the root, the one, simple, right? And a rope, you want it to be relatively complex. Otherwise, you have a piece of floss and you're not going to climb a mountain with a piece of floss, even though you've simplified it down to its essence, maybe you've overly simplified the thing. And so when I think about complexity, the question is, what is the appropriate amount of complexity?

• 1:09:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Usually, it's not by adding, it's by subtracting to get down to where you want to be. If you have 100 ropes and they're all tangled together, you're not climbing anywhere either. We've got a lot more to talk about, y'all. For anyone else has a listener tip like Thomas had, or any other tip about any other episode, this episode included, send a voice memo to [email protected] so we can feature your voice on the show. Up next, page two and page three, but first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 1:09:44Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that's like the first 39%. We've got a lot more to talk about over on Patreon, the full two-hour maximal edition with Steve Patterson, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, when it comes to decluttering, what's one thing everyone is doing wrong? What tools will help you respond to people with intention rather than react with emotion? How can I quit social media if I need it for my job or for my hobby? Plus, a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives, all the way back to the very first episode.

• 1:10:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Big thanks to Steve Patterson for joining us today. Check out his podcast, it's called Patterson in Pursuit. We'll put a link to that in the show notes, as well as his Substack and his website, steve-patterson.com. You can find his work there, a link to his podcast, and also the research institute that he was talking about earlier. That is our minimal episode for today. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Ben, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Jordan No More, Tom Cat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here with just one message... Let it be this. Love people and use things because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time.

• 1:11:09Speaker 02

  Peace.

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.