2512: Addition By Subtraction

Adding more to an already full plate is a perfectly human thing, but it keeps us stuck. Here’s the reality; if your peace depends on it, you don’t own it- it owns you. George G talks about the necessity of practicing addition by subtraction and how to get started! Grab your copy of the Addition By Subtraction worksheet here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K95rezsmjdiK6FJxyzpzAycToFIfxgbe/view?usp=sharing George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of The Meaningful Few here: https://amzn.to/4qA26X9 Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: MyMeaningfulFew.comYou can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee.https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifebloodGet your copy of The Purpose Book here:https://amzn.to/47Y2u98 You can get a free digital download of The Purpose Book here:https://moneyalignmentacademy.thinkific.com/enroll/2554435?price_id=3360279 Get our monthly updates here:https://george-grombacher.aweb.page/Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here:​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcastYou can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffeehttps://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifebloodCopyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:45Speaker 01

  And here we go again. New year, new me, new year, new you. So many wonderfully wonderful things, just call them wonderful things, happen this time of year. We have the best of intentions, hope springs eternal.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  And I just realized it would be a good business idea, maybe a terrible one, it would be the correct one, maybe not a good one, to sell calendars or planners that just have January and a little bit of February into it because I bet that the majority of planners slash calendars that get purchased in December and maybe even January do not get used past February 15th or Valentine's Day. Maybe that's kind of the line of demarcation of the cutoff. So I bring this up not because I think it's a bad thing to be thinking about New Year's resolutions, because I think that we're just looking at it or approaching it in a slightly

• 1:49Speaker 01

  or dramatically incorrect way. Because simply buying a new planner is not going to get the job done for helping us to actually change the way that we are acting or interacting with time and tasks and activities. And simply joining a new gym is also not going to get us back in shape. It will not change our habits of fitness and certainly will not change our habits of nutrition. And there's not an app that's yet to be created, although I've been told by YouTube advertisements that... There's now new ways to create the app that you've always thought should be in existence, thanks to this joy or wonder that is artificial intelligence.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  But anyway, we fail at resolutions, not because we're lazy, it's because we're trying to keep adding things. We're trying to pile more food onto an already overflowing plate. We're trying to rearrange the deck chairs in the Titanic. We're trying to buy new furniture for a house that's literally on fire. And the idea that I want to advocate for today is addition by subtractions. I think that all of our favorite philosophers, the Stoics, they would really enjoy this because it's basically a Stoic operating system.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  Epictetus would and did talk about controlling beginning with letting things go. And he's got a great quote that says that, "Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants." So they believe that peace of mind came from acquiring control, not from requiring, not from acquiring control, but by removing false dependencies. Trying to get rid of external validation, trying to reduce or get rid of excess comforts,

• 3:47Speaker 01

  and trying to stop confusing indulgence with happiness. Because whenever we overindulge, it doesn't make us happy. When we eat too much, like, "Oh, I feel like a fat POS." Or, "Oh, my God, I just watched TV for 10 hours." Or, "Oh, my God, I just laid on the couch for two days," whatever. And I think a really great Stoic philosophy or idea is this, is that if your peace depends on it, you don't own it, it owns you. So if your peace depends on a thing, you do not own or have control over that thing.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  It owns and has control over you. So that is not a positive thing at all. Marcus really is would talk about cutting away the superfluous things in life. One of his great quotes is that "life is short, do not forget about the most important things in our world." And it's a constant urge and push towards simplification. That it's prudent to strip away distraction, it's wise to get rid of unnecessary desires, to strip away pointless consumption of attention, or just a new consuming or consumption of just information all the time is not, not a good idea at all, because we have to be

• 5:14Speaker 01

  able to process it. And we human beings have a limited amount of bandwidth, regardless of how much bandwidth we think that we actually have, it's not unlimited. And he believed that suffering, most of it, comes not from hardship, but from clutter. It's mental and behavioral clutter. And so, being able to audit what it is that we're doing and get rid of stuff, that's kind of a key. So, he would finally say that, he would ask you to ask yourself, "What am I tolerating that is costing me clarity, that is costing me peace?" So, all really good things, and the Bible has a lot to teach us, as well as does

• 5:53Speaker 01

  every most major religion, this idea of, from John 15, "Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that may bear more fruit." So, it's a confusing thing, that in order to keep a plant healthy, a plant that is consistently delivering what it is that you want from it, we must prune it, we must cut it back. And it's a really curious thing, that there are a lot of trees in the forest that require fire to open up the cones. So, a lot of pine cones, a lot of coniferous trees, the way that their seeds are delivered, they're locked

• 6:36Speaker 01

  in the pine cone, and that must be opened up through heat, that will allow the seed to escape and reach its ultimate purpose, which is obviously growing a new tree. But that's true everywhere. It's true across nature and in life that we're always trying to add more, but what's actually required is to strip things away, to reduce things down that will then create the space, room, oxygen, whatever resource is necessary to create more, to get us closer to what we actually want. So the idea that growth requires removal and faithfulness comes after cutting. So God doesn't necessarily add fertilizer

• 7:20Speaker 01

  first, he prunes first. Hebrews 12 tells us that we, "Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily entangles us." So we're not just removing sin, it's considering and looking at every weight that it is that we're carrying. Because some things aren't evil, they're just maybe heavy. Think about watching too much TV, drinking too much, having, carrying debt, allowing too much noise in and excess. These are all different weights and weights.

• 7:52Speaker 02

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• 8:50Speaker 01

  Do weights do, which is slow us down. They literally weight us down. Gravity's already pulling on us enough, so why are we adding on extra stuff that we're having to fight against every day? So there's a lot going on with all of that. But think about things that...

• 9:10Speaker 01

  In our lives, examining what the real problems are, the things that we really refuse to stop doing, either because it's just we're just in the rhythm of keeping doing, keep doing the things we've always done. We follow particular patterns and habits over and over again. And unfortunately, many of us are in the habit of living paycheck to paycheck. We're in the habit of drinking five nights a week. We're in the habit of watching four hours of shows every night and picking up food through drive-ins or having food delivered to us. And then we scroll through our phones and think of it as relaxing when it's in fact not relaxing us in the very least. So, I want to keep it simple. It's not, how do I get more? It's what is unnecessary?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  And the Bible's not telling us to add more branches in. It's telling us to prune the ones we existing that we already have. So, growth doesn't come from accumulating more. It comes from actual removal. So, instead of resolving to do things this year, I think that we could all benefit from doing an audit and looking at the six key areas of our lives, which are obviously family, community, career and money, well-being, personal development, and peace of mind. In each one of those areas, ask yourself. And before I go any further, I will put a link to a worksheet that you can download. There's not a cost to it. You can just grab it and go through it. So, this is, you'll find that in the notes of the show here.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  In each one of those six areas, ask yourself the honest question, what am I doing here that I'd be better off not doing? So, I'm not saying everything, just there's got to be an obvious thing. Okay? In each one of those areas, what is one thing here that I'd be better off going without? Not doing, removing, pruning, let it fall away.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  And then the MVR is your most valuable resources, time, energy, attention, and money. These are the most valuable resources, but so many of us are just bleeding them quietly, a little bit at a time. It's not this dramatic thing where we lose all of our time. It's we allow it to be stolen, or we freely give it away in little increments at a time. And as you know, small bites, little increments, obviously add up to large bites and great big increments of time. So where are you doing that? And if you're looking at those four most valuable resources, think about the different expenses that you are paying.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  And then think about which one that you would never publicly defend, that you'd never say out loud, I need to, or that you wouldn't articulate and defend why it is that you're spending it. And that's probably a leak right there. So, but the worksheet that I talked about, I think is, or I know will be valuable framework for you to help to sort of answer those questions and to figure out where it is in your life that you're giving too much away. Maybe could be none, but odds are there's something. And it's not a question of willpower and willing yourself to do it. It's just being courageous enough to recognize that you're human and you're doing human things.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  And all of the things I'm laying out are extremely human. So it's having the courage to say, I don't need this in my life. That this is costing me way more than it's giving me. And I'm just sick and done, sick and tired of carrying it. I'm just going to set this down. I'm going to throw it off a mountain. I'm going to set it on fire, whatever it might be. When you subtract enough noise, this very, very remarkable thing happens. The things that matter become very, very obvious. And I love talking about, and I just wrote this book, The Meaningful Few. You're not going to find your meaningful few by chasing them. You're going to find them by just getting rid of the trivial things that they're buried

• 13:17Speaker 01

  underneath. So you don't need a bigger life. We don't need to add things in. We need a lighter one. And that lightness is earned not by adding more, but by letting go of what never belonged in the first place. So I really encourage you, check out the addition by subtraction worksheet that I've got linked. And I think that you'll really benefit from it. And I guess fundamentally, what's the harm in doing it? Figuring out what is one thing that you can cut out? And I think that you're able to do that, even if it's just for a week, to be able to go without.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  And that could really be an additive thing. Reminder that clarity doesn't come from anymore. It's about removing what's false. And would invite you to also check out the new book. Just released it, the end of last year, the end of 2025. Here we are at the beginning of 2026, and I will still write 2025 for the foreseeable future. But maybe you've experienced that as well. The book is called The Meaningful Few: Designing a Life That Actually Works. And soon enough, you're going to find a bunch of additional resources at mymeaningfulfew.com.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  And it's all designed to help you get what you want in life, which is fundamentally and foundationally what I want for you. You're going to get that when you do your part by doing your best.

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