809 The Power of Minimalism

THE LESS YOU DO THE MORE YOU CAN RECEIVE. Take a moment to explore your habits. Do you glance at your phone during every free moment? Do you fill up your calendar with things that don’t add value? Do you spend your day working on a job that has no meaning for you? If so, your life is cluttered. Not just with stuff, but with noise. Quieting down and clearing out our schedule can be scary because it means you may have the space to face some tough questions. But when you do, you’ll find you’re able to live a much more intentional life. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I explore minimalism with five experts on the subject: Cal Newport, Jesse Itzler, Joshua Fields Millburn, Rich Roll, and Chris Guillebeau. Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University. In addition to academic research, he writes about the intersection of technology and society. He’s particularly interested in the impact of new technologies on our ability to perform productive work or lead satisfying lives. Jesse Itzler is an ultramarathon runner who is also a bestselling author, award-winning rapper, and an original partner for ZICO coconut water. He is the co-founder of Marquis Jets and a co-owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Joshua Fields Millburn is the co-founder of The Minimalists, which has become a hugely popular podcast and lifestyle in the past few years. Joshua and his co-host help more than 20 million people live meaningful lives with less through their website, books, podcast, and films. The Minimalists have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Forbes, and more. They have spoken at Harvard, Apple, and Google. Their documentary was recently released by Netflix. Rich Roll is a graduate of Stanford University and Cornell Law School, accomplished vegan ultra-endurance athlete and former entertainment attorney turned full-time wellness & plant-based nutrition advocate, popular public speaker, and inspiration to people worldwide as a transformative example of courage and healthy living. Rich became a #1 bestselling author with the publication of his inspirational memoir Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself. Taking up where the book leaves off, in 2013 Rich launched the wildly popular Rich Roll Podcast. Chris Guillebeau is a NY Times Best Selling Author, speaker, a modern day explorer, and has been to nearly every country in the world. He is best known for The Art of Non-Conformity blog and book. He has also written guides for travel and small business topics under the brand Unconventional Guides. He organizes the annual World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. These five incredible teachers all have a practice of minimalism. I’ve combined key lessons from interviews with them to create a masterclass on doing less so that we can ultimately do more. So get ready to learn all about quieting down and clearing out on Episode 809. Some Questions I Ask: What was the greatest lesson you learned from Monks? (16:15) What’s the biggest personal challenge over the last few years? (32:13) If you were going to choose diet, meditation and exercise, which would you start with? (34:15) What’s the difference between a hobby and a quest? (36:39) In This Episode You Will Learn: About Cal Newport’s “30 Day Digital Declutter” (10:53) What happens when you remove your “pacifiers” (26:10) The question we should be asking ourselves but don’t (29:00) Why it can be good to have a quest (37:02) The importance of “getting in the box” (39:40) Plus much more... Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 809, The Power of Minimalism.

• 0:06Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Leonardo da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." And Henry David Thoreau said, "As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler." "Solitude will not be solitude. Poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness, weakness." Welcome to this episode. You are a dreamer and a doer. You are someone who is actively looking to grow your life, to improve your life and the life around you. Your environment matters to you. The relationships in your life matter to you. Your health matters to you. You care about the world. You care about how you're going to show up in the world.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  You are consciously and actively making progress towards a better life. And I'm so grateful that you're here, and I love you very much. This is a special episode on the power of minimalism. We've had so many incredible guests who have transformed their life from being in one of chaos to an abundance of material things or just material possessions. And also just a lot of thoughts and ideas constantly running in their head, which created a chaotic mind and a chaotic heart and body. And this is all about tapping into the power of being minimalist. And what does that mean? What's the value from this?

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  How can we achieve more by doing less? How can we create more love by being an inner peace? And today, we've got some special guests. The first one is Cal Newport. He's a computer science professor at Georgetown University. In addition to academic research, he writes about the intersection of technology and society. And he's interested in the impact of new technologies and our ability to perform productive work or lead satisfying lives. And he also does not have social media. And because of that, he's able to do deeper, more meaningful work. We've got Jesse Itzler, who is an ultra marathon runner, who is a bestselling New York Times bestselling author, award-winning rapper, and original partner of Zico Water.

• 2:40Lewis Howes?

  He's the co-founder of Marquis Jets and a co-owner of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks. We've got Joshua Fields Millburn, who is the co-founder of The Minimalist. He's got one of the biggest podcasts in the world on this topic. New York Times bestselling book, big documentary over on Netflix, and they tour all over the world. He came on here to talk about this. Rich Roll, good friend of mine, who is a graduate of Stanford University, Cornell Law School, accomplished vegan and ultra endurance athlete, former entertainment lawyer, who was overweight, out of shape, living a lifestyle that wasn't working and changed to this minimal lifestyle. Chris Gilbo, New York Times bestselling author, speaker, modern day explorer.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  He's traveled all over the world and he teaches this as well. And he's got his big annual event at World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. In this interview, we talk about the beliefs of being alone and the benefits about that. The lessons of living with monks and what that's like to silence your mind. Why, just getting rid of your stuff won't actually bring you peace. So saying that I'm going to be living alone with nothing to have, that's not going to bring you peace, but what will? And the value of making drastic life changes. I'm all about saying something is not working. Let's cut it off and drastically change, not small little things, but drastic. And how having a quest can provide meaning to your life.

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  Without a quest or some type of journey, some type of yearning, searching for something bigger, greater, something meaningful in your life.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  How it'll actually bring more meaning to your life. Very excited about this. Make sure to share with your friends. For someone who feels like they're in a chaotic place in their life right now, send them the Power of Minimalism podcast right now. LewisHowes.com/809. Be a hero in someone's life today by spreading the message of greatness. All right, guys, without further ado, let me introduce to you to the Minimalist Podcast.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Being alone with your own thoughts, right? It's scary, but it does three things. One, it's self-insight. So if you want to develop as a human, figure out what you're about, grow into a new phase of life, become an adult, any of these type of questions, you have to grapple with your own thoughts. You have to process your experiences. You have to try to make sense of it, right? That requires-

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  Ask the tough questions.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Ask the tough questions, you know, what are you upset about that you've done? What are you happy about? And that involves you, you can't do this while you're in input processing mode. So if there's something in your ear, something in your hand, you can't be doing this type of reflection. And so, so you don't, you don't develop. Professional insight requires it, right? Creativity requires you to actually take in all this input that you've been receiving. You gotta think about it. So like someone listening to this podcast right now is in input processing mode. So their brain is in a very particular mode, which is I am now receiving input that comes from another human mind, which is a very special mode. Our brain takes that seriously, all hands on deck, right? If you don't then take some time to just think about what you've heard, you're gonna get a fraction of the value out of it, because it's two different things.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  And then finally, there's like a maintenance aspect to it. So, you know, it's a big deal to be processing input from another brain, because again, we take that very seriously. If you're doing it all the time, so every time you have a down moment, you're looking at social media, for example, which is, you know, all input from other brains. You don't get the downtime that your brain needs just to do all the things it expects to have time to do, and this causes issues. And so I think this sort of low-grade hum of anxiety- That so many people feel today, a lot of that is actually lack of solitude.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:23Lewis Howes?

  So if more people were actually alone, they'd be more happy?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, not all the time, right? So I give this quote from the book. I found it in Ben Franklin's journals when he did his first transatlantic crossing, when he went to London for the first time. And so he was really thinking about

• 6:37Lewis Howes?

  A lot of alone time.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Solitude, yeah. So I found it in his journals. And he was talking about how like, well, the great sages talk about the value of solitude. But I suspect that if you made the great sages be alone long enough, they would start to regret it, right? Like, you can't be, you can't have too much solitude. That's just as bad. I think he kind of hit that on the nose. And so if you're alone all the time, it's terrible. The worst thing you can do to someone is put them in solitary confinement. But if you get rid of every moment of solitude, it can be sort of just as bad in some sense.

• 7:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So what do you recommend for someone who's on social media all day, email, text all day? They never have any downtime because right when they get home, they turn the TV on, they're stimulating constantly. Do you recommend, hey, take a 30 minute walk? Just start with that?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Do something without your phone once a day. That's the easiest way just to get comfortable. When you walk the dog or you're whatever, going to the drugstore, just leave the phone at home. I did this experiment where I put out a call to my readers and said, I'm experimenting with this idea of a digital declutter where you, 30 days, you step away.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  30 days, you step away. And this is kind of the core sort of suggestion in the book. Like 30 days, you step away.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  From all social media?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  All social media.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  Email too, or no?

• 7:48Speaker 01

  All optional technologies in your personal life. So I can't get you out of answering your boss's email, but online news, social media, games, streaming media, YouTube, right? Almost everything you do in your personal life with tech for one month.

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  TV as well?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  It's a

• 8:02Lewis Howes?

  Movies and TV.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, so different people had different rules for that. Like, one of the rules I liked is people said, no streaming media by yourself. So like, yeah, I can watch a movie with like a friend or my wife or something. But I can't just, you know, watching The Office or whatever. Which is what everyone does. And that's the idea was that you do this 30 days. Then when it's over, you rebuild your digital life from scratch. Right. So it's like Merry Kondo. You clear out the whole closet.

• 8:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes. And what brings you joy?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, you figure it out and then you rebuild it from scratch. Right. But I kept getting these reports from people, especially younger people, who did not have an adult life before social media.

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  That it was terrifying. That taking this away that first day was really terrifying for them. And I had underestimated the degree to which for a lot of people that this is a serious escape. It's not just like this is dumb. I spend too much time on nonsense. Like, it's actually an escape from hard things they don't want to deal with.

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  Like what?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Well, it can be a lot of things, right? I mean, for some people, there's actually hard questions about their life. Like, what am I? What am I supposed to be doing?

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  In my purpose?

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Am I really living up to my potential? Am I really happy with like the type of person you know I am? Am I just going out partying too much or this or that? And this stops them from having to confront that. And it's incredibly, you know, it's incredibly uncomfortable to confront. And for other people, just they don't have high quality analog leisure options in their life, which is another thing I learned about. It seems sort of superficial, like your leisure activities, but it's actually really important to have things you do. Like things you do in your time outside of work that is requires skill, something you can get better at, something that maybe connects you to other people as you do it. It could be like athletics for a lot of people, like even like a pickup basketball game or something like this, but also skilled hobbies, community or church group engagement.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Like these type of things that we always use to fill our time with outside of work are really important, but it takes some practice and it's harder. Right. And so getting back into that, if you've never been there before.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Is difficult.

• 10:04Lewis Howes?

  I think you said in your TED, TED video that you like read a book every night and you relax like on a rocking chair and you're like.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  I'm such an old man. Yeah. And I read a newspaper at the table with my kids in the morning. Like, that's how, that's how I.

• 10:16Lewis Howes?

  That was like my dad. My dad would read the newspaper after, either in the morning, but after work, you'd come home and just read the newspaper, just sitting in the room with us while we were watching TV or playing video games. He was reading the newspaper.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  And then I would, almost every night, he would just like fall asleep in his like chair, reading the newspaper or a book and just like passed out. And I'm like, man, he just looks so restful.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. I'd be a good farmer 100 years ago.

• 10:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, exactly.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  If I could just sit on a porch. And whittle or something. But again, it sounds superficial, but I get into it. Like, we go all the way back to Aristotle, right? In the Nicomachean Ethics. And you see that it's crucial to have activities you do just for the intrinsic quality. That's crucial for making it through the inevitable ups and downs in life, right? That you have activities that you do that you do just because you appreciate quality, right? If you have that, it's kind of a buffer against various ups and downs, right? If you're really good at cooking or playing music, if you're a musician, even amateur, you can really just appreciate a good piece of music. Or if you're a knitter or something like that, and just constructing something good. It all seems superficial, but it's actually a really important buffer.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  And we-

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  The in-between times.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  The in-between times. And so maybe you're having a hard time in life at the moment. Having this sort of anchor, but there's things I do that I just appreciate them for their intrinsic quality is deeply human. We take it for granted, but having the screen, I mean, you can avoid all of this. Because it's easier in the moment.

• 11:42Lewis Howes?

  And more rewarding.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  More rewarding is this algorithmically optimized content. You've been reduced to a data tuple of 19,000 data points. Statistical algorithms are processing, and they're feeding you. Like, look at this nugget, look at that nugget. It's reduced you to a statistical gadget. It feeds you these isolated nuggets. And it's just optimized so that you'll want to keep... It's the same as processed food.

• 12:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Same idea.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  You want more and more, but you're never satisfied.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Never satisfied. But if you move away from a real food culture to eat McDonald's, like, you're not going to be happy in the long term.

• 12:19Jesse Itzler?

  I've spent so much of my life exploring the physical side. You know, I've ran 100-mile races. I've done ultra paddleboard races. I've done marathons. And I love that. I learn a lot from those kind of things. But I've completely neglected the inner work. And I just felt super distracted, a little bit overwhelmed, four kids, wife, work, just like everybody else. And I just felt like, well, who are the masters? Like, who would be the best person or persons to talk about, like, just self-reflection? And just... And it was monks. And I didn't know anything about monk culture. I didn't know anything other than, like, watching a couple of movies and reading a couple of blogs about- The monk world. So I just said to my wife, I think I'm gonna go live on a monastery.

• 13:03Jesse Itzler?

  And her immediate reaction was like, listen to Lewis. Like, there are podcasts for this shit, man. You know, you don't have to go away to a monastery. But I learned best, without question, by jumping into the unknown. Like, that's the best teaching tool for me. And it's always been the way that I've gotten the most, like, growth. And I was like, man, I'm just gonna go. And I put the plan in motion pretty quickly.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  And I saw your before and after photos. I think you sent it to me or you posted it online. And I was like, man, you look so clear and calm. What was the greatest lesson you learned about yourself through the process?

• 13:38Jesse Itzler?

  I was very clear and calm. It took me a while to get to that place. Because when I first got there, literally the first minute I walked in, I took a quick tour. And the main monk, like, my grandpoobah,

• 13:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:51Jesse Itzler?

  Brother Christopher, said to me, tomorrow, we're gonna start at 7:15 a.m. with prayer, reflection, and meditation. And I was like, great. It's 6:05 p.m. What do I do for the next 13 hours? And he looked at me dead in the eye and he said, you think. And I was sitting in the room, the size of this desk, basically. And I said, okay, I'm gonna try to meditate. I'm not a big meditator. My form of meditation's been running.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  Working out.

• 14:18Jesse Itzler?

  Yeah, like, that's like my alone time, you know. So I set my timer for 20 minutes and I'm like, let me try to focus on my mantra. And I'm going through my routine and I'm getting bombarded with thoughts. Like, the worst shit is coming into my head, like,

• 14:30Lewis Howes?

  Why am I here?

• 14:31Jesse Itzler?

  Why am I here? What if something happens to my wife? My kids aren't, you know, all this stuff. And time is going by and I'm like, why hasn't my timer beeped? You know, I've been at this. So I'm like, well, maybe I didn't set it. Let me reset it. I'm like, no, I don't wanna cheat. It's gonna happen any minute. So I go back into my mantra and back into my mantra. And after it felt like forever, I'm like, I didn't, and start the timer. So I go to reset my timer and I look down, 3 minutes and 27 seconds. And I'm like, whoa, I am that distracted that I can't even, like, sit quietly for 3 minutes? Like, I'm that overwhelmed and distracted. And I realized that, like, I'm here for 15 days? Like, I'm [BLEEP].

• 15:15Jesse Itzler?

  You know, like, I'm like, this is like, I'm, what am I gonna do? And I couldn't call my wife and be like, what are you doing right now? And there was, I had to work it out in my own head. That was hard and I'm, one of the other really big takeaways for me was like. So that was one that you were really distracted. That was a lesson you learned. Really distracted. I realized, you know, when I came home, everybody asked me what I missed the most, but nobody asked me what I didn't miss. And I realized that a lot of things that I didn't miss filled up my calendar. So. For instance? I went during the final, during March Madness. And I'm, I've grown up watching March Madness and filling out the brackets and watching all the games. And I didn't miss that at all.

• 15:57Jesse Itzler?

  I didn't miss going and searching through Netflix, the thousands of films that I could maybe watch and short circuiting because it's just too much. Like, I didn't miss a lot of stuff that I do every day. And I realized that I'm putting a lot, like, I realized that I wanna, we were just talking about this before the podcast started. I'm turning 50.

• 16:16Jesse Itzler?

  The average American lives to be 78 years old. Here we go, all the research. Here we go. If I'm average, I got 28 years left. If I'm average, I hope I'm not. Right, but you're vegan, you work out, yeah. But if you reverse engineer that, if you reverse engineer the, those, the next 30 years, like, I just climbed Mount Washington. There were no 60 or 70-year-old guys on top of Mount Washington. The relevant years you have to do things that you wanna do, like, it's limited. So my enemy is the clock. And I realized, man, I just gotta live with so much urgency and to put as much stuff of the things that I love to do with the people that I love to do them with on my plate.

• 17:01Jesse Itzler?

  And that's like, as soon as I got home, I'm like, I'm a limit, I'm saying no to everything. Unless it moves the buckets in my family life, wellness, finances, or cause-related. Like, otherwise, I mean, of course, I'm gonna have some stuff on my, but the majority of my plate, I wanna fill it up with that stuff. 80, 90% needs to be filled up with that. Yeah. Is what you're saying. Yeah, and I've been very lucky to live my life a lot like that, but certainly the next 30 years, 50 to 80, like, that, I mean, man, it's spooky. I feel thirty-two, but there's a reality on it's I look at it every day when I pull my driver's license out to get on a plane or I look at my like I'm turning fifty, man. I start to reverse engineer how I want to live those days. When you're in a routine,

• 17:46Jesse Itzler?

  time goes really fast. And then you wake up and you're seventy and you're like, I can't climb the mountain, I'm seventy. When you get out of the out of your routine, like at the monastery and you look at the thing and it's three minutes and twenty-seven seconds, time slows down. I want to stop the clock, man, I got four kids. So my relationship with time in general was reestablished at the monastery.

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 18:11Jesse Itzler?

  Definitely.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  By eliminating the things that no longer support or serve your vision for your life and focusing on things that do.

• 18:18Jesse Itzler?

  And not waiting.

• 18:20Lewis Howes?

  Not waiting for what?

• 18:22Jesse Itzler?

  So like I climbed Mount Washington, I didn't didn't get to the summit with five friends and I came back. And Mount Washington is a really dangerous mountain in the winter. I think it's one of the ten most dangerous mountains because of the climate, it's cold, like minus thirty and the winds get up to fifty to seventy-five miles an hour and no visibility, blah, blah. Because of that, I didn't get to the top of this journey I did with five of my close friends. I came back and I'm talking to my wife about it. And because I posted it on Facebook, I was getting bombarded with, you didn't make it? You could you six miles to the you couldn't get? And I said to Sarah, I failed. And, you know, I felt terrible. I let my friends down, we did put it out there and she said, no, no, no, sweetie, she said,

• 19:06Jesse Itzler?

  first of all, you numbskull, get a tour guide.

• 19:10Lewis Howes?

  Right, don't get on your.

• 19:11Jesse Itzler?

  Get proper equipment and train for it and go back next year, next winter and knock it out. And I was like, next winter? I'm going back on Saturday.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 19:23Jesse Itzler?

  That's the urgency because there's no guarantee what next winter is going to do. We could talk about all of our vision, my thing would be like, well, do it now. You have a five-year plan? That takes too long, man.

• 19:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it does.

• 19:36Jesse Itzler?

  It takes too long.

• 19:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:37Jesse Itzler?

  So that's what I mean about my relationship with time. It's like, yes, I eliminated a lot of the things that were no's, but I also created a tremendous amount of urgency. I started to look at at my enemy, my greatest enemy, other than keeping my health, I mean, we all want to is the clock.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  I've done some pretty interesting experiments over the last six years. What are the experiments you've done? You've gone without a phone for a few months, right? I did. So when I first became a minimalist, I said, "Okay, I'm gonna work hard on paying down my debt." So I moved to this tiny $500 a month apartment in Dayton. And I just started going crazy on paying off all my debt, right? So I said, "I don't want to be tied to this lifestyle anymore. In order to not be tied to this career, I need to be able to pay off this debt." And so I went on the ramen noodle diet. Not literally, but... A $1,000 a month lifestyle. Yes. Yeah, I spent as little as I could so that I could get out of debt and no longer be tied to the same obligations, right?

• 20:45Speaker 04

  And so when I moved into that apartment, I didn't hook up internet for the first few days because it was like a weekend or whatever. And I'm like, "Huh, I wonder if I could go 30 days without internet at home." 30 days without internet. So I'm gonna try it. It'll give me something to write about, right? That was five years ago, and I have not had internet at home since. And I run an online business. Holy cow. And so I can tell you, the reason I don't have internet is... What about your phone? You've got internet there. Sort of, sort of. But I found a way around that too because I wanted to be able to write about that. So it was the most productive month of my life. Wow. Those 30 days. And I'm like, "Okay, I'm not gonna get it back next month." And so it just sort of continued from there.

• 21:28Speaker 04

  And it's not to say that I won't ever have it again someday. We have an office in Missoula, Montana, so I drive to the office and it's a place where I can schedule it. You can work there. Yeah, I can work there. I have an office at home too, but there's no internet there. But that's a place for me to create. But you're probably so focused when you're at home writing. It's deep work. It's full concentration. You're in the flow. Yeah. Not distracted by social media likes and who left a comment here and... Exactly. And so, yes, I do have a phone at home, but I keep it on... As soon as I get home, the first thing I do is put it on this charging stand. And in fact, I go out of my way to like... Keep it away from my person. You were asking me if I had a picture of something earlier. I had to like go into my bag and dig my phone out because I try to be as present as I can.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  And I'm constantly failing at that and that's okay. Like I'm not anyone's Yoda. I fail at all the time, but I learned so much from it. So when I got rid of internet, it was maybe six months earlier, I'd got rid of TV at home and realized that, you know, that wasn't adding as much value as I thought it was.

• 22:31Lewis Howes?

  Disconnecting you from your partner or your children or whatever.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so I was so...

• 22:36Lewis Howes?

  So no TV.

• 22:37Speaker 04

  I had no TV and then I did no internet. And then for two months, I got rid of my cellphone. And you learn about a special kind of loneliness.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  Because I mean, think about this. You've removed all your pacifiers, right? Because it was my first...

• 22:51Lewis Howes?

  You had to be with your thoughts.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, you had to be with your thoughts, but then, and you have to be with, you know, people and you have to make plans in a different way. And also here was the interesting thing. You learn a lot about your friends too. Because if you're gonna meet someone for lunch and...

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm running a few minutes behind. You text really quick, yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Right. I couldn't do it anymore.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  You were just there and you're on time, you're waiting. Oh.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, and you learn how...

• 23:10Lewis Howes?

  What's happening?

• 23:11Speaker 04

  There aren't any payphones anymore. I mean, there was one in Dayton where I lived. I had to, you know, walk in the rain four or five blocks to get that.

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  You don't even have quarters anymore. So you're like, how do I... What do I do?

• 23:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, and so...

• 23:22Lewis Howes?

  You're not remembering the numbers anymore.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  No.

• 23:24Lewis Howes?

  They're all plugged in our phone. I used to remember every number.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:27Lewis Howes?

  Growing up, you know, your five friends, your home phone, you know.

• 23:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. There's a great John Mayer lyric. He talks about the shape of calling. Like I no longer remember the shape of calling home. And...

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  Shape of calling home, huh?

• 23:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you've got, you know, you used to remember these numbers like on the keypad there.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  Or the little dial ringer. You remember those?

• 23:44Speaker 04

  Oh, yes. Yeah, the rotary phone. Yes.

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  That was me like age six or seven.

• 23:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. I grew up with one of those.

• 23:50Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  So, yeah, I realized that, that once I removed all these pacifiers, that I had to, I had to fill the void with something else that was more, maybe more meaningful. And so I'd rediscover these things called books. They're amazing, let me tell you.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  But you're so minimalist, you didn't have books.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  You rented them from the library. No, I wrote them. And then you read them. I rediscovered time to create more. I rediscovered time. And then the cool thing is minimalism isn't about deprivation for me. Like, I'm not trying to deprive myself of these things. I'm not an ascetic. I don't want to go live in a cave somewhere. I do want to live in our society. I just want to do so deliberately. And so I decided to bring a phone back into my life. And when I did, I used it more deliberately. No longer do I have Facebook on my phone. No longer do I have email on my phone. It's a phone. Yeah, I used it to make phone calls and send text messages. GPS, that's how I got here today was GPS, Uber. I took an Uber to get here. And so, so the technology is there and I allow it to add value to my life.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  But when it starts getting in the way, I try to check myself because the phone isn't the problem. I'm the problem. And, and once I realized that, I knew I could change that by just being more deliberate with, with how I use it. Minimalism wasn't just about the stuff for me, right? That was the initial bite at the apple that changed everything. But I think we get so caught up in just the stuff. We, we, we think decluttering is just a point. I think anyone watching or listening to this could go rent a dumpster, throw all their crap in it and be utterly miserable because you've just removed the pacifiers. The, the point isn't just getting rid of the stuff and coming home to an empty house and sulking. That, that, no one wants that.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  I don't want to tell anyone to get rid of your book collection or, or whatever. Like whatever adds value to your life, I encourage you to hold on to. But question, what adds value to your life?

• 25:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you know, I started the podcast shortly after this book came out, which was in May of 2012. I started the podcast in November of that year. And it was really my intention, you know, I didn't even know if I would do a second episode. But once I kind of got rolling, it was an opportunity to just continue the conversation that I think this book began. And one of the kind of core themes of this book, a lot of people sort of mistook it as a book about running or how to be a better triathlete. It's really not about that. It's about how to basically better self-actualize, how to become, you know, the best, most authentic version of yourself, however that looks for you. And my story is intended really as a metaphor. For, you know, I think the unlimited potential that we all have.

• 26:30Rich Roll?

  But one of the themes is that when your heart is true, that the universe will conspire to support you.

• 26:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:36Rich Roll?

  And when this book came out, I put everything in into like pushing it out into the world. And let go of practicing law. My background is in corporate law. And I thought, OK, I'm going all in on trying to sort of create some kind of profession out of promoting these ideas that are important to me, whether it's speaking or writing another book or whatever that may look like. I wasn't really sure at the time, but I thought, OK, my heart is pure. This is the theme of the book. I'm putting myself out there. I'm stepping out and I'm waiting for that universal signal of support. And I gotta tell you, like, it didn't really come. I was like, phone's not ringing. What am I gonna do? Money was running out and, you know, I could go do a speaking gig for free

• 27:21Rich Roll?

  or maybe do a little thing here or there.

• 27:23Lewis Howes?

  Try to slap some books or whatever, yeah.

• 27:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you know, and, you know, I have four kids. I've got a mortgage. So we went through a very difficult extended period of time that lasted a number of years. I mean, it was like five or six years of touch and go. Julie calls it, my wife calls it, our divine moment, where we were really brought to our knees and forced to really confront our attachment to material things, like our house and our cars. We had two cars repossessed. Well, after this book came out, I mean, it's like, it was the weirdest juxtaposition because I was getting a bunch of attention and I was sort of in the, you know, in the media. And yet, at the same time, there was a lot of kind of suffering that we had to experience around how to kind of navigate

• 28:08Rich Roll?

  what we were trying to accomplish and do in the material world. And ultimately, you know, we really had to burn in that fire in order to kind of come out. And I think that required a tremendous amount of faith and persistence and really just being in the moment, like day to day, to try to figure out what the next step would be. But I think emerging from that, I mean now everything's great. Like my life is an embarrassment of riches and I had so much opportunity and it's insane. Like I, you know, it's, it's hard looking back to even imagine what it was like back then. But I think it, it allows me to communicate, you know, with the people that are tuning into my channel and my frequency with a level of humility and honesty and, and just realness, really, because I know what it's like to kind of be in that place.

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:54Rich Roll?

  And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to rewrite the book. Cause I wanted to tell that story of what happened after Finding Ultra came out from 2012 to present, because I think those events are equally dramatic, if not more dramatic, and certainly more relatable to the average person than some of the ultra endurance feats, you know, that are chronicled in the original version.

• 29:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What would you say is the biggest personal challenge for you over the last five or six years?

• 29:22Rich Roll?

  I think, and this is a theme that you're, that you know well, like it really challenged my idea of what it means to be a man, like as a masculine human being, as a head of household, as somebody who is supposed to be a provider.

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:36Rich Roll?

  Somebody who's supposed to have all the answers, somebody who's supposed to make their kids feel safe. And all of that was called into question because I was in a position where for a period of time, providing for my family was a tremendous challenge. And I would not have made it through without the strength and support of my wife. I mean, there were many times where I was like, forget it, I'm going back to being a lawyer, I'm gonna, I'll get a job at a corporate law firm, whatever, like we gotta like, you know, we gotta like take care of business here. And she's like, no, you cannot do that. Like you've come so far, you cannot retreat. That's a, that's a move backwards. Like the only way out of this is through.

• 30:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Rich Roll?

  And I have your back. And if we have to say goodbye to our home, like we're together, we're in love, we're with our kids, it's all gonna be fine. And it's easy to kind of say those things, but to actually live those things and, and weather that storm is a different matter altogether. And so it was because of her in, in large part that, you know, I even get to sit here and talk to you today.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  It's a pretty powerful woman.

• 30:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Lewis Howes?

  It's inspiring. We talk a lot about exercise, meditation, and diet, both of us, the guests we have on. If someone is looking to improve their life and transform their life, and they wanted to get started with one aspect, diet, nutrition, physical exercise, and meditation, which one do you think should be? Obviously, all of them are equally important, but if they could only start with one for whatever reason, which one do you think is the most important to start with? Meditation, nutrition, physical exercise?

• 31:08Rich Roll?

  It's hard because they're so intertwined with each other, and it's hard to parse one from the other. So I'm reluctant or reticent to say one versus the other. But if you're forcing me to do that, I would say focus on your diet first. You know, I think changing your plate and cleaning up the vibration of what you're putting into your body is a portal to the soul. And if you are intentional about that and, you know, really focus on trying to eat real foods as close to their natural state. You know, in my case, I eat 100% plant-based diet. If you're not ready to take that entire leap,

• 31:51Rich Roll?

  just try to eat mostly fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and beans, things like that. I think that that will be a catalyst for future growth in those other areas. And that was my experience. Like, I wasn't ready to meditate or to, you know, return to becoming an athlete or any of those things. I started with changing my relationship with food. And I think when you change that frequency of what you're putting into your body, it impacts you on every level, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, et cetera. And it is a catalyst for progressive growth from there. So I would start with that. And the more you kind of refine that, then suddenly, you get interested because you suddenly have a high sense of vitality.

• 32:34Rich Roll?

  You're like, oh, I feel like going out and moving my body. I haven't felt like that way. And so the fitness will naturally follow. And then you're like, wow, my body feels good, and I'm taking care of it in this way. Like, how do I tend to my spirit and my emotions and my mind? Well, I guess I'll start exploring the world of meditation.

• 32:55Chris Guillebeau?

  Yeah, a quest is a long-term mission or goal or pursuit. It does have an end. You know, a quest has a beginning and an end. Like, we're all on a long journey. We're all doing lots of different stuff. But a quest is something that does have a destination in mind. Even though it has a destination in mind, it is very much about the process. There's lots of incremental steps along the way. You don't usually, you know, begin a quest, you know, one day and then finish it the next day. There's usually some amount of sacrifice or challenge in it. There's an element of risk to it. And then usually what happens is, more often than not, the quester or the person pursuing the quest has changed, you know, in some fashion along the way. You're usually not the same person at the end as you were in the beginning.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay, so there's some type of transformation.

• 33:42Chris Guillebeau?

  Yeah, and sometimes you know what that transformation might be in the beginning and other times you don't. And that's part of embracing the uncertainty of a quest. Or even if some of the listeners don't relate to the word quest, you know, I do believe that all of us can embrace this value of adventure and maybe creating some structure around that value of adventure.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  Got you, okay. So, you know, some might say, "Well, just traveling to all these different countries, it sounds just like a hobby, something you like to do." But there's a distinction between, difference between hobby and quest.

• 34:11Chris Guillebeau?

  Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, I think like a hobby, yeah, something you like to do. I mean, you like to travel. I mean, for me, maybe travel was initially a hobby, was something I liked to do. But then I kind of created that focus or that structure around it. Again, it's not something that everyone can relate to, which is why, like, for the book and for the study, I didn't want to just look at travel quests, you know? And that is my inclination, since I'm a traveler. I naturally kind of gravitate towards stories of, you know, there's a guy who walked across America, you know, over seven and a half months. There was a young woman who sailed around the world and kind of circumnavigated the globe in a small sailboat. And she was the youngest person to ever do that. So I I tend to like things like that, but I also wanted to focus on lots of different things. So there's some humanitarian quests.

• 34:55Chris Guillebeau?

  Uh, there's some academic quests, some quests in the arts, you know, people just kind of pursuing something. I guess it's kind of pursuing something to the exclusion of of everything else, you know, or maybe not everything else, but you are making trade offs and choices, you know, to pursue that dream, you know, you you are saying no to some things in order to to pursue this thing.

• 35:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there's a sacrifice.

• 35:16Chris Guillebeau?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 35:17Lewis Howes?

  There's a sacrifice. Yeah, you I'm, you know, I read the story about the the man who runs over two hundred and fifty marathons. I was just like, I can't, I haven't run one, you know, it's incredible.

• 35:25Chris Guillebeau?

  I know, I can't even, I can't relate to that either, you know, I have run one marathon, but like, yeah, that's totally different than two hundred and fifty. So it's kind of funny, interesting, because I had a lot of stories in the like that in the first draft of the book, and we did keep many of them. Um, but I got some feedback from my editor, and he said like that, he's like, most people are not going to be able to to relate to this at all. He's like, you know, they're going to read the story of the dude who ran two hundred and fifty marathons, and be like, that's awesome, like, good for that dude.

• 35:49Lewis Howes?

  I could never do that.

• 35:50Chris Guillebeau?

  Right, exactly. And so I tried as well to say, like, hey, here, most of these stories are actually ordinary people, you know, who have just chosen to do something remarkable. Like, they have been courageous, they have been brave, um, but they're doing something that you could do, too, you know, and and and the central message of the book and the whole message I'm trying to put forward is not just a sociological study, it's, I'm trying to actually say, like, a quest can improve your life, you know, a quest can bring purpose and meaning to your life, too.

• 36:17Lewis Howes?

  So we're always told to think outside the box, or hear this, think outside the box. But you talk, you talk about getting in the box idea. Can you talk about what get in the box idea is?

• 36:27Chris Guillebeau?

  Yeah, getting in the box is about restricting your creativity and restricting your ideas, because we all have so many ideas, and sometimes that leads to stagnation or to not doing anything.

• 36:37Lewis Howes?

  And Too many options means no decisions.

• 36:41Chris Guillebeau?

  Yeah, exactly. And so I guess for me, part of what's helped in into the creative process in general, whether it's it's writing books or something like a quest, is is to restrict those options and to to kind of, you know, paint some corners around myself and say, okay, here, here is the box, right? Like, everybody's always saying, as you mentioned, like, get out of the box, you know, blah, blah, blah. But for the quest, it's helpful to have these parameters. Here's what a country is, you know? I get questions about this too, like, how many countries are there? I'm like, well, I use the UN list, you know? I use the list of United Nations Member States. There are other lists out there. There are other places, other geographical places, which are kind of debatable. And like, it's this geopolitical conflict over whether they are a country or not. That's totally fine, but I feel like you need to have a box. You need to have a parameter.

• 37:26Chris Guillebeau?

  So for me, like, that's the parameter I chose.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 37:30Chris Guillebeau?

  You know, I feel like this is helpful in life is to say, like, here are the guidelines or the rules in which I'm going to live my life or pursue this project. And I'm the one who's making those, right? That's what you should do for your life, like, no one else is doing this. But I feel like if it's self-applied, then it's good.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  You've got to create that, yeah.

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this interview with the minimalist. The power of minimalism. If you want to calm your mind, calm your world around you, then start thinking like a minimalist. See how you can actually clear things out of your space. Make intentional purchases. Make intentional ideas. Really get clear on the life you want to live and then be intentional with the ideas, the thoughts, the actions, the feelings and your surroundings. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Be very conscious about this. What I love about this audience is you're all conscious achievers.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  You're actively seeking ways to improve your life and the life around you. And this is what I love about this community. I believe it's the best community in the world, the School of Greatness community, because you want to improve things. You don't want to cause chaos and harm on people. You want to improve yourself and the lives of people around you. And that's why I love you all so very much. Whenever I meet you, walking down the street or out at a salsa club, a lot of people come up to me at salsa clubs, or if I'm speaking at a conference or anywhere, at a restaurant, a grocery store, lots of you guys come up to me and you give me a big hug and it always means the world to me and I love you. I love hearing your story about how this podcast has supported you in growing and becoming better and improving your life.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  So, thank you for all that you do. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend, spread it on social media. Be a hero and a champion in someone's life today by sending them this link to help them inspire their life. LewisHow.com/809. I love you all so very much. As Leonardo da Vinci said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Simplify your life. Simplify the ideas in your mind. Silence the stress and the chaos. Be intentional about your surroundings, the people you surround yourself with, and the things you take on every single day. We've got a big episode coming up this next Monday. Get ready for a huge episode.

• 40:04Lewis Howes?

  If this is your first time here, please subscribe, rate, review, share this with your friends. And as always, I love you so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.