2623: That Which Feeds Me, Destroys Me

LifeBlood: What if you lost everything tomorrow? Not your family. Not your health. Just...your stuff. Your house. Your furniture. Your closet. Your garage. Everything. What would you replace immediately? What would you never buy again? This episode explores how loss creates clarity, why our possessions often become our burdens, and how a simple thought experiment can help you identify what truly matters. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of You’re Money Isn’t the Problem- You Are here: https://amzn.to/4uDYFRz Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live http://lifeblood.live/, Twitter https://twitter.com/ourlifeblood, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lifebloodlive, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeblood.live/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ9Gc4mMwCHZKUHjbt0-qA and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifebloodlive 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 https://george-grombacher.aweb.page. Copyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:43Speaker 01

  Humans have this incredible ability to accumulate, to accumulate stuff. Commitments, subscriptions, apps, clothes, shoes, opinions, responsibilities, notifications, obligations. It's amazing. I speak from experience in all of this. Here's a strange thing. Many of the things that once served us eventually begin to consume us. That which feeds me destroys me. Bigger the house, well, obviously, the more house that there is to maintain. The nicer the car, the more you worry about scratching it. And if you can't afford to fix it, you certainly can't afford to buy it.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  The more subscriptions, just death by a thousand cuts, the more little payments coming out of your checking account every month. The more possessions, the more decisions, the more commitments, the less freedom. Sometimes the very thing that once made life great and you improved your life and made you happy, a little bit at a time, begins the thing that controls us. It begins, becomes this anchor. It's either keeping us stuck or even pulling us deeper into the ocean, down to the bottom. There's an old saying among minimalists, things you own end up owning you. And I think that we all know that there is truth there

• 2:08Speaker 01

  because every single possession has a cost to it. A lot of the time, it's not an obvious price tag hanging off the thing. You can't see it, but there are costs. Maintenance costs, there's obviously insurance costs. You've got to store the thing somewhere. You have to clean it, you have to fix it, you have to give it attention. And of course, of course, there's headspace that it's consuming. It's taking up our bandwidth. And if you haven't figured this out, which I'm sure that you have, we only have so much of it and it's less so by the year, it seems. So every time we're saying yes, that's eventually become,

• 2:50Speaker 01

  that is eventually going to become some new responsibility. So imagine something uncomfortable. Imagine that you experienced a fire and thank God, everybody survived. The family is safe, but everything else is gone. The house, furniture, the closet, the garage, the office, everything. Now ask yourself, what would you replace immediately? Not eventually, like right now. Your bed? Well, for sure. The computer, most certainly. Family photos, of course, hopefully, no question about it. But what about everything else? There are questions there.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Would you replace your fifth set of golf clubs? Would you replace that treadmill that's been holding your clothes? What about all those kitchen gadgets, that storage unit? That sweater that you haven't worn in five years? You going to replace that? Would you even remember half of the stuff that's not there anymore? So this isn't really about possessions. I think it's about clarity. Sometimes loss reveals value more than abundance ever could. There's this great phrase that I learned when I was in, I think it was eighth grade.

• 4:15Speaker 01

  My English teacher, Dr. Bernabeau, Lawrence Bernabeau. That's right. Really interesting guy. Table rasa. Table rasa means a blank slate. Imagine beginning again. And not because you're forced to, because your family suffered a fire, but because you choose to. What would make the cut? What deserves to come back into your life after it was removed? More importantly, what's been taking your attention without giving much back?

• 4:57Speaker 01

  This idea of addition by subtraction is also a good one that I really enjoy. It isn't just about cleaning the closet, but that's a good thing to do. It's also just about reclaiming your life. I shouldn't have said just. It's profound and it's about reclaiming your life. Deleting all those stupid apps, canceling the stupid subscriptions, leaving the committee, selling the boat, donating the clothes, unfollowing the noise, streamlining, cutting down, simplifying your calendar. Say no again and again and again. Keep saying no until your life begins reflecting your priorities

• 5:40Speaker 01

  instead of your accumulated decisions. And again, not just true of possessions, it's true of beliefs. Old identities, resentments, fears. Sometimes the version of you that gets where you want to go isn't about, isn't found or arrived at by adding more stuff in. It's more often than not built by letting go of something. Turn it loose. If it comes back, it was meant to be. Imagine you woke up tomorrow with a completely clean slate. What would you intentionally build? Who would you spend time with?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  What work would you busy yourself with? Would you throw yourself into? Would you become passionate about? What would you refuse to allow back into your life? Like the movies where they pile all the furniture against the door because they just can't let that thing in.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  What would you be piling the furniture against the door to make sure it wouldn't get back into your life? Anything? But there's something. And those answers, that's what we're getting down to is these are the meaningful few things in your life, the things that truly do matter. And everything else, it's the trivial many. It's just clutter. And sometimes clutter is essential, sometimes it's fun. But remember, not all the time, but sometimes that which feeds us eventually destroys us. And sometimes losing things is exactly how we discover what truly matters.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  It sounds good, right? And I remember the first time that I discovered minimalism. I got excited about it and I went through and I threw away a ton of stuff. Some of it I donated, whatever. I just, it exited my house. And this is something that I've done with my career. This is something I've done with relationships. Like the things that gave me energy or happiness or whatever, also were extracting just a massive toll. Things that were putting food on the table, like the career path at the time,

• 8:13Speaker 01

  realizing that this is not sustainable. This is different than I expected. It's not what I want. And to have the courage to walk away.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  To push yourself back from the table, put your fork and knife down and just stand up and walk away.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Sounds easy, does hard.

• 8:36Speaker 00

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• 9:04Speaker 02

  Football Sundays are at my house this year, so I've been making a Total Wine & More run before every kickoff. Cold beer for the group is a given, but this time of year, I like to bring in some fall flavors. A bottle of maple whiskey and a salted caramel whiskey that even my friends who don't drink whiskey end up trying. I get everything I need at the lowest prices at Total Wine. Discover your new favorite fall flavors at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, must be 21.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  But there are plenty of things going on right now in my life that I know that I need to address. I know that I need to evaluate and find out if this shit just burned up.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Would I be better off? And for that stuff that the answer is yes, well, that's a pretty compelling case. It's time to get rid of that. Time to get rid of that. So there's an exercise that I invite you to do. Just draw three columns on a piece of paper. One of them is replace immediately. So if you did lose this thing in a fire, what would you bring back? Your bed, your computer, your pictures?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Just things that are useful. So that's kind of the second thing is,

• 10:24Speaker 01

  what are things that you don't necessarily need to bring back essentially right away, but then the second column is things that are useful. It's not essential stuff. So it's, you know, it's furniture for the guest room. It's patio furniture, an extra TV, stuff like that. And then what would you get rid of on just not allowed to come back in? And obviously, it should be unused subscriptions, clothes that never fit or that you've never worn, duplicate stuff for your kitchen, boxes that are in storage, all that stuff. So those are the three categories. What comes back immediately? What maybe will come back eventually and what's

• 11:06Speaker 01

  just not coming back? Think about what is it that really owns you? What's got your number? What's taking your attention? What's, what's taking or giving you way more anxiety and agita or stress than it is bringing you value? What have you mistaken for success? And what, if you never bought it again, would make your life actually worse? If you never bought this thing again, what would make your life worse? What item would that be that would not having

• 11:43Speaker 01

  it would make a life worse? Interesting. So less stuff, more freedom, less obligations, more intention, less consumption, more creation, less maintenance, more living. So I think that that's of value. Would I buy this again if it disappeared? If it burned in a fire, would I buy it again? Certainly, the goal should not be more. It's not always bigger. It's not always different. More, better, different. If that's what we're constantly chasing, that is a recipe

• 12:21Speaker 01

  for discontent. And in a lot of ways, those are the enemies of just living a content life. And contentment is certainly similar, but very, very, very different from happiness. I think about, uh, contentment is my resting heart rate. And then happy and sad, those are the spikes. So for example, I'm a happy human being. I'm a contented human being. When I have an ice cream cone, it makes me happy. When I drop the ice cream cone on the ground, I get sad. But it has nothing to do with my level of contentment. So this exercise is designed to identify those

• 13:01Speaker 01

  things that are threatening your contentment that is feeding you while also destroying you. An obvious low hanging fruit here, it's social media. That's not the thing that's feeding us, but it's feeding us just garbage and without question destroying us. Anyway, you get the idea. I think it's worthwhile exercise. I'd be curious to hear from you to find out what you think and what items are that you're just no way are bringing back, what is for sure coming back and what might find its way back. But I think it's worthwhile. What we're really talking about is doing your part by doing your best.

• 13:42Speaker 03

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• 14:17Speaker 04

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