548 | Past Lives

Joshua, T. K., and Ryan talk about embracing minimalism after escaping from an abusive family, some of their favorite non-minimalist books, Joshua's new How to Let Go Tour, and much more. Discussed in this episode: If intelligence is getting what you want, is wisdom wanting what's worth getting in the first place? (2:16) How can I tell the difference between wisdom and fear, especially after escaping an abusive family? (5:00) Right Here: Right Now: Joshua's first solo tour, T. K.'s new show, and Ryan's new restaurant. (22:08) WWJO: What books are on The Minimalists' bookshelves? (24:45) WWJO: What vagus nerve stimulator does Joshua own? (38:02) Check out the Nuropod: https://nuropod.com/theminimalists 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, the minimalist. I'm Joshua Fields, Millburn. Look, we've got to talk. Because of TK's recent performance, I've decided to phone a friend.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Ryan Nicodemus is here. Yeah. Oh, it's so good to be with you guys. This is awesome.

• 0:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Savvy D, don't we have some applause or something we can give for Nicodemus?

• 1:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  No, actually because of, uh, oh.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Oh, there it is. Oh, stop, stop, stop. Okay, keep going.

• 1:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Josh, were you expecting that? I thought you were just joking.

• 1:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Savvy D always comes through. Actually, we have some travel plans this week, so we are away from the studio. So we're recording this episode remotely today, which gives us the opportunity to bring Nicodemus back into the fold. So hop in the comments if you enjoy this format. Let us know if you'd like to hear more of episodes like this, or if you hate the whole thing, you can let us know that, too. Ryan, it's great to see your handsome face again today.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Oh, it's so good to be here. I'm so glad we get to do this, man. Like, yeah, you sent me that text, like, hey, we're gonna do a remote episode. Do you want to join? And I was like, oh, yeah, that's a hell yes for sure.

• 1:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. And you even have the day off the restaurant today, so it was perfect timing.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  That's right, man. Yeah, I get, uh, I get some days off of the restaurant. Restaurant's going great, but man, let me tell you, uh, it's a lot of work, that is for sure.

• 2:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  For new listeners, Nicodemus just opened a Mediterranean restaurant in Missoula, Montana, called Sumac. We just did a grand opening event there, but it sounds like it's, it's going great. We'll talk a bit more about that later in the episode, but here's something to chew on first.

• 2:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  If intelligence is getting what you want, wisdom is wanting what's worth getting in the first place. TK, this is a quote from Shane Parrish. We were talking about him on our most recent fam's call. And is there anything you would add to this insight from Shane? If intelligence is getting what you want, wisdom is wanting what's worth getting in the first place.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  I mean, I like that. I think the best way to understand a quote like that is at the experiential level, because we all have experienced the burden of getting what we want and the blessing of not getting what we want at certain times in life. It makes me think about the old fictional trope where someone gets a wish and the lesson in the end is, yeah, be careful what you wish for. Why? Because you just might get it. And so on the side of making the wish, we feel the great danger of life is having to suffer through unfulfilled desire. But then when you get that wish, you realize, oh, man, sometimes getting what you want can make life worse

• 3:27Speaker 03

  because we don't have a perfect understanding of what is good for us or how we'll react and respond to things. Doesn't mean we should live in fear, but I really do like this idea that over time we acquire experiences and insights that give us greater self-understanding and we're able to make decisions from a place of saying, yeah, there's a part of me that is craving that. There's a part of me that's stimulated by that, but there's also a deeper part of me that knows that there are hungers that can't be satisfied by that trinket, by that trinket or temporal experience. And so I'm going to pursue something richer.

• 4:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I do want to talk to you in a bit about untangling wisdom from fear because I think those two can get quite tangled and then it doesn't look like wisdom at all. So coming up on this episode, we'll talk to someone who embraced minimalism after escaping from an abusive family. And then we'll answer a question about some of our favorite non-minimalist books. Plus, I have an exciting announcement about. My first ever solo tour. I'm doing a few tour stops, something called the How to Let Go Tour. Tickets are now available at theminimalists.com/tour. We'll talk about the details toward the bottom of page one, but first, let's start with our callers. If you have a question for the show, join the program 4062197839,

• 4:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  or you can send a voice memo right from your phone to [email protected]. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message. Our first question today is from Vic.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  Hello, minimalists. My name is Vic and I'm from the UK. I'm 56, married, a mum to our two adult daughters and a grateful Patreon member. Six years ago, I realized my relationship with my parents and brother was emotionally abusive and rooted in narcissistic dynamics. I went into therapy, ended contact and sold our family home of over 20 years to move away and start over. The transition was difficult. We experienced a smear campaign and the rental fact we moved into was too small for all of us with damp mould and no heating. During that period, I turned to feng shui, hoping to create change and a sense of control.

• 5:46Speaker 04

  Instead, the accumulation of objects, rules around their placement, and the hope attached to it all became overwhelming and intensified my OCD.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Discovering minimalism was a turning point. I removed the feng shui objects and we embraced a simpler, more intentional life with fewer things. Over the past year, I reached out to my family to explore if we could rebuild a healthier relationship, but it became clear that it wasn't possible. Now, six years after making our big move away, we're still on shifting sands. We haven't yet found a home of our own and we've also faced employment uncertainty and health challenges along the way. Our plan is to buy within our means, but that means making compromises, both on the home we choose and the areas we'd ideally like to live in. I imagined my fresh start would bring freedom, but instead I found myself overwhelmed

• 6:41Speaker 04

  by decisions about our next home, what to buy, where to live, what is sustainable and what is financially safe. I struggle to know whether I'm making wise thoughtful choices or whether fear from the past is keeping me stuck. How do I rebuild trust in myself and learn to make decisions with confidence again? Thank you for everything you share. Your conversations about narcissism and cults resonated deeply with my own experiences.

• 7:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh Vic, there's so much in this question. Ryan, I thought maybe we could start by talking to Vic about our own past lives, so to speak, where we both escaped sort of abusive families, at least on a long enough timeline. I guess we we escaped that. What insights do you have for Vic based on your own experience?

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Man, yeah, first off, I totally resonate with being in an abusive home, just having a stepdad that just hated to see me smile. Let me tell you, man. It was like anytime I was happy, like I had to worry about whether or not he was going to do something to make me unhappy. And yeah, like that was very traumatizing. Going into adulthood, I just always carried this feeling of like whenever things were going well, that like the rug was going to be pulled out from underneath of me. And it has things to do with my stepdad and, you know, different traumatic events happened when I was a kid. But yeah, it

• 8:09Speaker 02

  was it was very difficult to work through that trauma. What I'll say is the things that helped me the most really is therapy. I've got a really good therapist and being able to talk to someone about these thoughts and feelings that come up out of nowhere, being able to have a different perspective with those. And that's what a good therapist does. A good therapist just offers you a different lens to look at life through and kind of helps you unpack some things. The other thing too is just really choosing carefully like the things that I do with my life, like the decisions I make. So the things that I watch, the people that I hang around,

• 8:50Speaker 02

  just really going out of my way to create a healthy mental environment and physically healthy as well. So yeah, trying to create a healthy environment for myself, staying physically healthy, talking to a therapist. I think this has really helped me work through a lot of those traumas, but man, they still pop up. They don't just go away. It's things that I've learned how to manage, not things that I've learned how to shove aside and not affect my life. But for for me, like I would, I would give Vic the, the recommendation to like, talk to a therapist and really get, and it's sometimes it takes a while to find a good one. Like I had to go through a few before I found a therapist that I really liked, but find someone that you can talk about

• 9:33Speaker 02

  these deep issues and someone who is skilled and is trained in dealing with, with traumatic events like this. I 100% get what she talked about. Like, how do I have faith in myself? How do I trust myself? How do I have confidence in myself to make decisions? And the truth is Vic, is you just have to give yourself a leap of faith. And yeah, sometimes you're going to make a decision in hindsight. It's always 2020. You might look at a decision you made and be like, oh man, that was not the right one. But do not let that affect your future decision making. We all make mistakes. We all make choices that we wish we could go back and, and make differently. But, but you know, when I think about the decisions I make, I just take that leap of faith and like

• 10:18Speaker 02

  really trust my gut. I trust my friends and, and the people in my life to kind of help guide me. But that's something that it just takes practice Vic.

• 10:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, Ryan, you said something about the rug being swept out from under you. And that resonated with me a lot because when I was a kid, I think some of the most traumatic times for me is when my mother got sober.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 10:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And which is weird, you wouldn't think that, oh, like, everything is calm now and you should finally be happy and feel secure. But there was an uncertainty within that. The uncertainty was, yeah, but I'm going to open up that living room door and she's going to be on the couch passed out again. And this whole cycle is going to start all over because I've seen it start over 100 times. And there was a period of like four years where she was sober, but every day I'd put that key in the door as I came home and I was just expecting to be bowled over by sadness and sorrow and, and the unfortunate events of her falling off the wagon again.

• 11:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, I'd love to talk to you a bit about Vic escaping that circumstance, but then the uncertainty that she's now paralyzed by. She's sort of paralyzed by any sort of life-changing decision. And in the opening, we talked about wisdom and fear a little bit. Maybe there's a way for her to untangle the fear from her current circumstance and, and find some wisdom within it.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I think, I think Ryan hit the nail on the head about the importance of having community, having a context where you can, you can talk about things and you can unpack these feelings. And you can look at your past through the eyes of validation. We all need validation. And yes, there are, there are and should be constraints around how much we complain, but there's a difference between merely complaining in an aimless way and saying, you know, here's something that really hurt me and I'm still bothered by it to someone that cares about you. And that can reflect that back to you and say, you know what? That's actually quite a normal saying thing to feel the way you feel.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  And we often place so much pressure on ourselves to be enlightened or to grow too fast. And one of the wisest sayings is never force yourself to grow too fast. In the same way that we want to give ourselves the opportunity to experience the richness of childhood, to experience the richness of our teenage years, to experience the richness of middle age, we also need to experience the richness of processing our regrets about what has been, the richness of processing where we are right now as we are in the middle of working through it. So the only thing I would add to Ryan's recommendation is more, you know, be versatile

• 13:16Speaker 03

  in your fleshing out of a community that can help you process things. I know for me, I'm with Ryan, I have a therapist, I also have a spiritual director, I also have groups that I'm a part of where we might meet weekly or bi-weekly. And these are people who have similar vulnerabilities and we can talk about them in a context where we know there is that trust and we're discussing these things because we want to help each other be healthier.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Go ahead.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I was just gonna say, like, the only thing I would say too is like Vic, please have some grace with yourself. You're not supposed to be anywhere right now. You're not supposed to have a certain feeling or not have a certain feeling. You are exactly where you need to be and just have some grace and accept that like, yeah, this is a process, but it's okay to be where you're at. That quote, which I'm not even gonna try and repeat that you brought up in the beginning there, Josh, it made me think of that Sheryl Crow song, you know, it's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you got. And like, that's, Vic, that's, I think that's applicable here, just being comfortable with being uncomfortable and being happy with where you're at.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  You got out of an abusive relationship, you got away from it, and that's amazing. And now you're on a different chapter. Just give yourself a little bit of grace, Vic.

• 14:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, or a lot of bit of grace, you know, with respect to the things that we fear. Sometimes they Ryan said you never like completely get over it, but I think the fears of the past, they diminish pretty greatly the further they get away in the rear view. And so it feels so big when it was yesterday, right? And it feels insurmountable and I get to a point where a week from now, it's a little less damaging, a month from now, it stings less, but I still feel the wound. But a year from now, you know, it's the cliche about time healing wounds, but there's also some about time shrinking the traumas from the past because the past explains your fears,

• 15:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  but it doesn't have to author your future. The past does not equal the future and sometimes it feels like it does because we create a pattern through the habits of the past or through the situations in which we have been steeped in. And then that that fear feels like it's going to continue in perpetuity. But of course, there's quite a bit of emotion tied up in that in the moment and it feels so giant. TK, you wrote a bit about this in Emotional Clutter. In fact, Vic, I'd love to send you a copy. We've got a new print edition. Let me pull this out here, a print edition of Emotional Clutter. If you want to check it out, it's up on Amazon or you can ask your local bookstore for it.

• 16:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Emotional Clutter, you talk a bit about that, but really that's what we're talking about here. She's experiencing this overwhelm. I want to move to a new place, but every time I do, the fear and the overwhelm of my OCD kicks in. There's a whole lot tangled up in the stuff that I think doesn't have much to do with the stuff at all.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think it's important to

• 16:35Speaker 03

  there are some instances in life in which it's better to raise our expectations and expect more from ourselves and the people around us. And there are other circumstances in life where it is just as healthy to lower our expectations and expectations and say, hey, this problem that I'm having here is still something that I'll need to sort out when I go there. And by adjusting those expectations, we rescue ourselves from the further damage and heartbreak that comes from expecting things from ourselves, other people, and our environment that are unrealistic. It's almost like getting married and having the expectation that, oh, wow, now that I found someone that I love, I will never

• 17:18Speaker 03

  experience sadness again. Well, that's a lot of pressure to put on your spouse because there are many reasons to feel sad in life that have nothing to do with your spouse. You could have the most perfect spouse in the world, and you're still going to have moments that unpredictably make you feel sad. And so if you go into marriage with the expectation that now that I have this, I'm never going to feel sad again, the moment you feel sad, you won't be able to process it realistically, you will plummet and you will enter into a state of despair that is almost like too much to bear. And so I think it's important to somewhat lower the expectations and say, when I move, I don't have to escape

• 18:00Speaker 03

  my past. My move is not an effort to escape the past. Maybe there are some things I would benefit from distancing myself from, but this process of processing is something that I will do throughout my life. And when I go to a new space, it doesn't need to be my everything. My everything is my healing and my capacity to be gracious to myself and to enjoy whatever little bits and pockets of life that I can be available to. That's where my joy is going to come from.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think this goes back to what we talk about, which is lower your expectations, but you know, raise your standards. And yeah, you hit the nail on the head, TK. And an example of that for Vic is right now, she might expect, I should be past this, I should feel a certain way. You can drop those expectations, but you can raise your standards. So what does that look like, Vic? Okay, you do not like the way that you feel. Life is hard right now, but what you can do is raise your standard and go just going back to getting a therapist, like that's something that you can do that's actionable. And that is creating a higher quality of life for you. And the standard is essentially

• 19:11Speaker 02

  like, go and get the help that you need. That's a great standard with dropping expectations.

• 19:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think it's important to make that distinction between expectations and standards. And I don't think expectations are evil or wrong or bad, but they are a recipe for disappointment. An expectation sort of spotlights your desires and a standard underlines your values. So there's nothing wrong with desires, but we talk about at the very beginning of this episode, it's a quote from Shane had to do with wanting or desiring the most appropriate things, right? And, and, and not wanting the things that are going to end up making us miserable. I think we don't realize how often we want something that ends up just turning into clutter almost immediately. And that could be physical clutter, emotional

• 19:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  clutter, spiritual clutter, relationship clutter is a big one. And a lot of the time that that's based on the pattern that we've developed in the past. So the difference between an expectation and a standard is a standard just underlines what your values are. So if you keep it in the, the simple realm of a cluttered home, if you have an expectation that you should have a clutter free home, then you're going to cringe every single time something is out of place. And I catch myself in my own life. I'm like, oh no, like I'm in a home, my home office right now, and we're redoing a few things around the house and they're, it's a less than ideal situation for me. And if my expectation is

• 20:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  my home is always going to be spotless, no matter what, anytime the tiniest thing is out of place, I'm going to feel disappointed by that because I had an expectation. However, if I have a standard that I remove what doesn't add value to my life whenever it pops up, then my home grows clutter free. It grows calmer over time.

• 21:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And that's simply the difference between having an expectation that shows you what I want, what my desire is, and a standard that shows you what I value broadly speaking. And then I think you can apply that way beyond your material clutter as well. You can apply that to your relationships. If you expect someone to love you immediately, or you expect someone to be your soulmate,

• 21:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  then well, you'll probably miss countless chances to actually be loving to other people. But if your standard is to be loving or to be present with others, then the love will take care of itself. So Vic, I'd love to send you a copy of Emotional Clutter. I think you get a lot of value from it. The new print edition is really beautiful. It's a hardcover book here. And yeah, or you can get it on audiobook as well. I'd be happy to send that to you. TK and I recorded the audiobook version together. All right, before we move on, I've got a couple, what would Josh own question? Let's see if we have time for both of those. But real quick for right here, right now, let's talk about a couple of things going on in the life of the minimalist. So my good friends Ryan and TK have been working on their own projects.

• 22:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ryan just opened that restaurant called Sumac in Missoula, Montana. And TK just started his new show, which the first episode came out this week. It's called One Question with TK Coleman. Put a link to that in the show notes as well. I encourage you to check that out on YouTube. He has a bunch of really interesting guests over there. And so they're working on their own things. And I've been working on this book for about the last year. It's called How to Let Go. And I eventually decided this isn't a book. It's funny, but it's like auditorily funny. And I couldn't make it work on the page the way that I wanted it to work. Whenever I would try things out in front of a live audience. So I said, you know what? This looked like a book at first, but it's actually a one man show. It's a live event.

• 23:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So I'm doing something called the How to Let Go Tour. And we're going to introduce in three cities first. If it goes well in these three cities, meaning if people show up and they really want to see this, we'll do more cities. So I'd love to see you in. In Seattle, Vancouver, and New York City this fall. In September 11th and 12th, I'll be in Seattle and Vancouver and New York City October 18th. I'll put a poster up here on the screen. We'll have Tomcat put it up there so you can see the How to Let Go Tour poster. And then, yeah, you can check out the entire tour itself. But it's essentially just this one man show. And I want to explore what becomes possible when we stop clinging.

• 23:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And it's funny, it's honest, it's heartrending and thought provoking at times. And really, I want to explore with the audience, the sort of invisible weight that we carry every day, the physical clutter, the expectations, which we talked about, anxiety, ambition, resentment. And there's a visual component to this. And that was really why the book wasn't working. I didn't want to turn it into a picture book, but there's a visual component to this. And there's also an audience interaction piece that the book wouldn't do it justice for what I wanted to do. So I hope you come out to Seattle, Vancouver, or New York City this fall.

• 24:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can grab your tickets right now at theminimists.com/tour. And if you sign up for the simple newsletter, you'll be the first to hear about any new cities that I add to that tour. You can find that at theminimists.com as well. Now, before we move on to page two, let's do a What Would Joshua Own question. This one is from Colston.

• 24:51Speaker 05

  Hi, my name is Colston calling from the UK. I'm curious what books are on your bookshelf. Thanks so much.

• 25:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Colston, thanks for that question. First off, you can visit theminimists.com/recommendations for the nine books I recommend the most. I rarely recommend anything, but people would often reach out, especially back in the Twitter days. Remember Twitter, Ryan?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. I miss that and Vine.

• 25:22Speaker 02

  Those days.

• 25:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, Ryan made some of the most classic vines when we were on tour in 2015. Yeah, so people would ask all the time, like, what books do you recommend? And so I put together a list of like, because so many people just kept asking, I wanted to send them a URL. So theminimalists.com/recommendations, I've got nine books that I recommend there. But as far as my bookshelf, which is here, I'm in my home office right now. I have a small bookshelf that holds, I don't know, what does it hold? Less than 100 books for sure. My wife and I share the space there. It's a beautiful boundary that we've set up because if I bring a new book home, I have to take one book off the shelf in order to replace it and then I go donate it to the little local library.

• 26:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so you can find those recommendations I have, but I pulled a few books off the shelf as well. So the only books I have at home are the minimalist books. I've got everything that remains. I just reread these over and over and over. You got very, very simple, the new 12 tools for a simpler home.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  What are the odds that the one book you have is called Everything That Remains?

• 26:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, so good. No, I actually grabbed a couple of books. So the books I have at home, I tend to let go of books pretty regularly. I either donate them to the local free libraries or I give them to friends all the time. And yet there are some books I go back to again and again and again for different reasons. One is I teach a writing class, but I'm also a writer and I enjoy the insights from Verlaine Klinkenborg. This is probably my favorite book about writing. It's called Several Short Sentences About Writing. And it is, he really inspired me. A lot of my writing style has to do with the short sentences that he writes with, but also the paragraph breaks.

• 27:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I often write long sentences, but break them up with line breaks or paragraph breaks in interesting ways. And it helps me sort of sort through ideas better. But that book is one of my favorites and it's, I rarely enjoy reading books about grammar or writing. They're often very boring and I've read over. A hundred of them at this point, but this one is one I return to and I can just pick it up and turn to any page and find some really interesting insights. Here's one. He said, here's an experiment, experiment, copy or print a couple of pages from a nonfiction work you admire. Something not purely memoir. And then he goes into like an exercise you do there.

• 27:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And, and sometimes the sentences are just gorgeous, but he gives you something to chew on, just open any page and I find value in it. The book that I recommend the most, in fact, if you put me on a deserted island and I said, and you said, hey, you can only read one book over and over and over for the rest of your life. It would definitely be Anthony de Mello's Awareness. I find this book to be, um, it's one I go back to. I, I struggle because almost every line in the book is underlined, which I guess kind of defeats the purpose of underlining a book. But I just keep going back and I learn something new every time I read this book. I've probably read that book more than any other book, but most of the reading I do is, is fiction.

• 28:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so I pulled one book off the shelf. Don DeLillo, I think writes the most beautiful prose of any writer, dead or alive. He's still alive, thankfully, and um, he's still writing to this day in his eighties. But every sentence in this book, this one is called the Body Artist. It's one of his lesser known books, but it's, it might be the most beautiful book I've ever read. I couldn't tell you what it's about because the sentences are like staring at a painting. And I really enjoy just the, the sentence structure and the syntax, and you can tell every word, every character, every letter he neuroses over. And so I'm not interested in the characters of the book or the plot of the book for this particular book, although they're fascinating.

• 29:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm interested in how gorgeous the sentences are. Sometimes I'll just open it up and stare at a page for a while, like I'm at a museum, looking at a, Picasso painting or something. And so those are, those are some of the books that I get the most value from. I read mostly fiction in my leisure time. And so there are a few books I go back to again and again, Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, some of those folks are on that recommendation list I have. But TK, is there a book that you share the most, um, when, when someone asks for a book recommendation? Is there one book like I have awareness that you keep going back to?

• 29:55Speaker 03

  Yes. And then I got a quick question for you about how you avoid book clutter.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  The book that I go back to all the time and that I frequently recommend is by Steven Pressfield, The War of Art.

• 30:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  It's just such a short book and it's such an easy read, but it's one of those easy reads where when you read it, you won't struggle at all to understand exactly what he's saying. It's very clear, but it, but it just punches you in the gut in all the right ways about winning the battle for your soul. That is creativity and, and it's, it's one that I read at least once a year and I've recommended it to everyone that wants to write or wants to create something and struggle to get around to it. But can I throw a question at you about book clutter?

• 30:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Of course.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  One, one common form of book clutter is not the physical clutter of having too many books, but, but the mental clutter of feeling pressured to take other people's book recommendations or to read certain books, you know, because maybe, maybe you gotta be informed or it's like, I gotta know about this kind of thing, like the great books list and so on. You seem to be completely unburdened by that. Tell me a little bit about your perspective and how you, how, how you maintain a certain measure of healthy freedom from like the pressure to read books that society thinks you ought to read.

• 31:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ryan, you're a creative person, but if I told you that here's an easel and a bunch of paint brushes, I think you'd have a, an easy time sort of letting those go in advance by simply not accepting them.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely.

• 31:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so I think I'm kind of that way with books. The only nonfiction I really read regularly are from guests that are coming onto the podcast and part of that, it's like an entry point into their world. They spend all this time writing this book and dedicating a year of their life or two years of their life to, to crafting this thing that they hope people get value from. And for me, what's interesting is I read those books differently because TK, I'm going through those books with questions like, oh, this would be really interesting to talk about on the show, or oh, wow, I've never thought about it this way. Let me see if I can phrase a question so I can have that person expand on this point a bit more. The books I read at home tend to be.

• 32:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Fiction. And so I'll take a book recommendation every now and then, but I, I don't know. I just don't feel compelled to, to pick it up. And even if it's like a great recommendation, if someone drops a dollar on the floor, I don't feel like I have to, to pick it up. But if I want to pick it up, great, then I get to, but I don't feel like it's something I, I have to do. Does that make sense, TK?

• 32:32Speaker 03

  It does. What do you say to people when, not if, because I know what happens to you when they're like, oh, Josh, you should totally read this book here. And you're completely uninterested.

• 32:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I say, thanks for the recommendation. Thanks. And it's genuine too. I do appreciate the recommendation, even if I don't, not gonna have the time. I mean, if I had infinite time, I would take everyone's recommendation and I would read the book that everyone gave me, but I don't have infinite time. And if, if I had a hundred thousand clones of me, I could read every book and listen to every song and watch every movie that other people recommended. But I can say, thanks for the recommendation and mean it genuinely without committing myself that I must commit, commit myself to, to then spending. I'm a really slow reader. I have dyslexia too. So like I read very slowly. So reading a book is a 10 hour endeavor for me. And so if I want to dedicate 10 hours of my life, it has to be the best use of those 10 hours.

• 33:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Otherwise I'd rather spend that time doing something else. How about you, Ryan? Do you have a book that you recommend to people more than any other?

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Oh man, I wish, I knew you were gonna ask me this and I'll tell you what, the last fiction book I read was Dead, I Well May Be.

• 33:41Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, yes.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  But that was, that was so many years ago. Yeah. And I've been reading a lot of nonfiction and I've been going down the, you know, the spiritual rabbit hole. And I'll tell you, the, the book that I have on repeat right now that I have recommended so much is Conversations with God. And yeah, it's, it's just a beautiful book about this dude who.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Had a conversation with God and whether he actually did or didn't, he really believes that he did. And it was, it's this beautiful conversation. It's actually a three book series. But yeah, it's, it's awesome, man. I really, really like it.

• 34:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know what? I don't want a book to ever feel like a chore either, right? And that's why I said early on, like I avoid recommending books to other people because I also don't want to burden them. If someone's asking for a recommendation, then obviously it's not a burden. But even then, I don't have any sort of expectation that if I say, you know, Anthony DeMello's book really changed my life and I like to return to it several times a year and read passages or read the whole thing at least once a year. And I enjoy doing that because I'm compelled by it. But if you're not compelled by something, then it's going to feel like, oh, it feels like homework, you know? And when you were going to school, even if they gave you a book that was really compelling, but they thrust it

• 35:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  upon you and gave you a deadline, it kind of felt like, oh, man, I guess I'd rather be doing something else. And that's, that's not a pleasant reading experience. And so I often return to books that I'm compelled by. They, they have a magnetic quality to them for whatever reason. For me, that's a lot of fiction. Jonathan Franzen's most recent book is called Crossroads and it's the best novel I've read, if not ever, certainly this decade. And it's up there in the running for the best books. And I'll go to that and just turn to a page occasionally. But really, it's about the, the story and the, the characters.

• 35:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And, and I, I look forward to going back to them. And it's like, I know these people. I get to meet with them again. And that's so much more delightful than, I guess someone recommended this book, so I really should. I don't want the, I don't want the, the sort of demeanor of should when it comes to enjoying a, a work of art. I want to feel like I get to do it. Another book I read recently isn't even a book, Rob Bell on his Patreon, he had a book that never got published and he renamed it. He just called it Burrito. And it's a story about, it's written in second person. And so it's written from your

• 36:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  perspective. And it's not available anywhere other than on his Patreon. But it's like 15 chapters, really short book. And I love the way that it's written, super conversational. He left the typos in and everything, which there was something special about that. But it, I was reminded of it because of what you said, DK. It's this, this guy who has a burrito. And in the first chapter, we find out there might be some magic mushrooms in the burrito. And he walks over to the park. I imagine it takes place in Ojai, here where he lives. And he's having a full on conversation, sort of Socratic conversation with Jesus throughout the whole book. And it is so fascinating. And if you are Christian,

• 37:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  you probably have one perspective on it. And it's probably a bit heretical. If you are not, then it is, I don't, either way, I think whatever perspective you come at a book like that, it's really fascinating, because you, you sort of walk into the mind of the author. And that, that to me is what, what great books do. They're an exchange of consciousness. Many of my favorite authors are no longer living. You know, David Foster Wallace had the most profound impact on me ever. He hasn't been around since 2008. But I still get to have this exchange of consciousness with him and with any other author that I read. When I open up their book and find words from a day ago, or from a hundred years ago, I get to have that exchange of consciousness. I feel like they

• 37:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  left behind a gift for me. And that's what makes writing super compelling for me. Real quick, we have a moment here. Let's do a bonus question from Sonia. So bonus, what would Josh own question?

• 38:11Speaker 06

  Hi guys, this is Sonya. I'm a Patreon subscriber and look forward to your weekly newsletter as it always brings value to my life. I heard Joshua mention a vagus nerve stimulation device he's been using in a recent episode. What was the name of that device? From what I heard, I believe it may help reduce some of the health challenges I'm dealing with. Thanks so much.

• 38:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I was hesitant to mention the brand on that episode, so I'm glad you called it out because Ryan recently started using the same one. We were on tour together this spring and the the brand I use is called a Neuropod. It's right here and it's not cheap. So I will say that obviously have some consideration before just spending money on something like this. In fact, I'm going to give you like a bunch of tips on page three, how to avoid impulse purchases here. But this thing, it just clips onto my ear. I wish I can't do right now because I have a headset in, but it clips onto your where your vagus nerve goes into your left ear and it sort of stimulates the stimulates the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve isn't actually

• 39:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  a nerve. It's a nerve bundle of like 200,000 nerves. And Ryan, I was telling you about this and I'd love to hear about your experience with it because I was so fascinated when you tried it. So I'll tell you some of the benefits and why I was compelled by by this. But first, can you just talk about, we were on tour, we're in the hotel lobby and you tried it on for the first time. And I just saw this the craziest look on your face. I've known you for over 30 years and you had like, I don't know, the way I described it to another friend of mine is it felt like you you melted into the present moment.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was, it's such a weird little device. And I got to tell you, man, if it wasn't for you recommending it, I would not have not even considered it at all. But you had one and let me try it. And yeah, it was like this instant, I don't know, calming, like definitely felt my anxiety lower. My stomach was making weird noises and felt a little funny in a good way. I slept better that night. Like, I'm really trying not to sound super salesy and cheesy right now, but it genuinely, it genuinely had some really awesome positive effects on me.

• 40:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I remember you trying it on there and like I saw in your eyes like it was, I don't know, and you said you even felt it like your arm and your chest. So the vagus nerve is responsible for your parasympathetic nervous system. That is the the rest and digest system, which is the opposite of the sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight or flight. And in modern times, because of our glowing screens and we're constantly bombarded with inputs and and messages and more, more, more, more, and 5,000 advertisements a day. And we have these emergency fires to put out at work. And now we're driving in traffic and we're stuck in traffic and everything is is activating our sympathetic nervous

• 41:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  system. And so it's always feels like fight or flight. And we don't activate our parasympathetic nervous system enough. And as a result, what happens is we're overstimulated all the time and we we experience quite a bit of anxiety, but also messes with our digestive tract and messes with our sleep. If we can't regularly tap into the parasympathetic nervous system, then well, we have issues and we feel overtaxed or overstressed. And and my wife actually recommended or she said, Hey, you might want to try some sort of vagus nerve stimulation. And I had tried some different exercises through vocal breathing and stretching.

• 41:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And there are different ways, cold water immersion to stimulate the vagus nerve, which runs from your left ear down through your neck and down through your digestive tract. And there was a different device that I looked into, but then I saw a lot of negative reviews and and I started looking for, is there a different device that might work? And what I stumbled into was so remarkable. There was in the 1980s, there was a study for people who had epilepsy. They did this vagus nerve implant where they implanted device that in the neck that stimulated the vagus nerve for five minutes a day, every day for to help people with epileptic seizures. And it turns out

• 42:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Helped about half the people with epilepsy. And when the other half of the people went in, they weren't really getting benefits. They didn't reduce their epileptic seizures appreciably. But every single one of the people who were part of this trial said, please don't remove the device when they went in to get it removed. And the researchers were sort of puzzled and they were like, well, why wouldn't we remove the device? Like, you're not getting any benefit. Oh, no, no, I'm getting a ton of benefits. It's just not helping with the epilepsy. It's helping with my sleep. It's helping with my digestion. It's helping with especially my inflammation throughout my body. And those are the three things that I noticed immediately. The first night I tried it on, I put it on for 15 minutes. I had the best night of sleep in my adult life.

• 43:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And I wasn't expecting that. I figured there was about a 50 50 shot that it would help me out and I fully had a 30 day money back thing. So I was like, I'll just send this back in if it doesn't work. It's definitely worth trying. And the very first day, it was appreciably better than I expected, even measurably better. I have the Oura ring. So I was tracking my sleep and I had like a 95 or a 96 six sleep score, but I slept all the way through the night. I didn't wake up once. But then I noticed it was helping with my digestion a bit. My urinary tract improved in remarkable ways. I felt like I was 21 again. And then of course, my inflammation was lessened pretty dramatically.

• 44:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now I've done a bunch of things over the years to reduce my inflammation, but it lessened it in a way that I didn't even realize I was still having some inflammation in my ankles and and other joints. And I felt that pretty quickly within the first few days, there was a dramatic improvement. And so I use it about every other day now for about 15 minutes. I know you can use it for more than that, but that has worked really well for me. And so Sonia, I reached out to the folks over at Neuropod and I asked them if we could give you a discount code. Anyone else who's listening to this as well as an affiliate discount code. So if you're interested in that, I don't think you need it. But if you do need something, if you want to try You're certainly welcome to do that. We'll put that in the show description for you as

• 44:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  well. But it worked tremendously for me. If you have issues with parasympathetic, your parasympathetic nervous system, it may work for you as well. But I would make sure that, you know, it's something that you feel like it would improve your, if you have, if you're not struggling with anything like sleep or inflammation, then of course, I wouldn't feel compelled to go out and spend several hundred dollars on something there. But they gave us a discount code for you, Sonia, if you want to, to check it out. We've got a whole lot more to cover today, gentlemen. Let me see where we're at here. Oh, by the way, if you have a what would Josh own question, or a listener tip for the show, you can send a voice memo to [email protected]. So we can feature your voice on a future

• 45:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  episode. We still have a lot more on page two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back.

• 45:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, y'all, that is the first 33% of episode 548. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two hour maximal edition with Ryan Nicodemus, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, is it ever healthy to buy something that represents the person you want to become? What's the difference between an aspirational purchase and a compensatory one? And if the minimalist looked at your home, if we came into your home right now and looked at your closet and, and other rooms, your living room, your kitchen, what would we look for? 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 episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

• 46:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  or your favorite podcast app. Plus you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to the very first episode, Ryan, back in 2015. By the way, big thanks for Ryan for joining us remotely today. You can check him out at Ryan Nicodemus.com if you want his regular emails, the mentoring messages that he sends out. And of course, if you find yourself in Missoula, Montana, make sure you check out his restaurant. It's called Sumac. And TK has his new show out. It's called One Question with TK Coleman. You can find that on YouTube. We'll put a link to all of that in the show notes today. And that is our minimal episode for now. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Ben, Spire Jeff and Dave, Tom Cat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team. I'm Joshua

• 47:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Fields Millburn. 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.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  We'll see you next time.

• 47:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Peace.

• 47:32Speaker 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.