407 Living With Less: The Power of Being a Minimalist with Joshua Fields Millburn

"Question what adds value to your life." - Joshua Fields Millburn If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/407 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 407 with Joshua Fields Millburn.

• 0:07Lewis 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We have the minimalist Joshua Fields Millburn on today's Super Pumps. Now, for those that feel like you are overwhelmed with too much stuff in your house, too many things, too many possessions, this is the episode for you to learn more about why less is more. Now Joshua Fields Millburn is a writer and a minimalist. He's the co-founder of the popular blog and podcast that gets millions of downloads and followers on the blog called The Minimalists, as well as the author of several books on the same topic. And he owns fewer than 288 things, people. That's right,

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  only 288 possessions total. After losing his mom to lung cancer and his marriage ending in the same month, he found minimalism as a lifestyle and quit his corporate job to become a writer. He has conducted several lifestyle experiments since his switch to minimalism, like living without internet at his home, living without a phone for two months, living a year without purchasing material possessions at all, living without television at home, living without goals, and so much more that we'll talk about on this episode. We dive in deep, guys. We talk about why humans are so wired to be dissatisfied, how

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  Joshua got into a half a million dollars of debt while he was working a high-paying, successful career job. What minimalism actually

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Actually is versus what people think it is. The difference between consumption and compulsion. How Joshua runs an online business without having internet in his home at all. And so much more. Guys, I know you're gonna love this one. It's a powerful episode. No matter if you have lots of possessions, a little possessions, and somewhere in the middle. I just felt cleansed. I was talking to Joshua and I felt like I learned so much about why we hold on to things and what happens to our mind, our body, and our productivity when we start letting go. Ladies and gentlemen, this is episode number 407.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  Make sure to share with your friends. All the show notes, the full video is back at lewishouse.com/407. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Joshua Fields Milburn.

• 3:11Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School Greeners Podcast. We've got Joshua Fields Milburn in the house. Good to see you, man. If this table wasn't between us, we'd be hugging right now.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  Both huggers.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Definitely huggers.

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  We're both from Ohio.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  You're from Dayton, I'm from Delaware.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:25Lewis Howes?

  So very similar, about an hour, 10 minutes away, I think.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:29Lewis Howes?

  They are.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Indeed.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  Ever been to Delaware?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  I have not been through Delaware, no. I spent a lot of time in Columbus, though.

• 3:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so it's about 20 miles north of Columbus.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:36Lewis Howes?

  So.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:37Lewis Howes?

  And I lived in Columbus for a little bit. And you are a writer and a minimalist. You've got the minimalist blog with your partner, your writing partner. And you guys have created a movement, man. You guys get almost 5 million unique visitors a year.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:52Lewis Howes?

  You've got many bestselling books. Whenever you travel the country or the world, you get hundreds, if not thousands of people to show up to hear you guys speak and talk about minimalism. And why did you get into it? Because I read your story about your mom going through a challenging experience and your marriage going through a challenging experience.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 4:12Lewis Howes?

  Can you tell us why you got into minimalism?

• 4:14Speaker 01

  I'm 35 years old now and about seven years ago. If we do the math there, I was 28. I had achieved everything I ever wanted. The six-figure salary back in Dayton. It's a pretty big deal in Dayton, too. In Dayton, Ohio. I was really doing that. I know, right? And so I had the six-figure salary. I had the big suburban house with with more toilets than people. And I had the closets full of expensive clothes, the luxury cars, plural. All the stuff that was supposed to make me happy. And I didn't necessarily feel fulfilled, but I just kept. I knew I was always one promotion, one paycheck, one purchase away from achieving happiness someday

• 4:58Speaker 01

  in some hypothetical future that was just around the corner. And if I could get this, then I would be happy. And that started well, well before that. I mean, I grew up really poor in Dayton on on welfare and food stamps. And we didn't have a lot of money and there was a lot of drugs and alcohol in the house. And it was, you know, a dysfunctional household before that word dysfunctional was cool. And and so, so, so we, we grew up really poor and I said, I don't, I don't want to live this life. Right? And so by age 18, I circumvented the whole college path and just went and got a sales job. And I realized. Didn't go to school. No, no, yeah, I just realized I almost dropped out of high school.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  And I realized that, that I, if I worked six or seven days a week, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, you can make good money, even as a 19-year-old, right? You're, you're, you're in sales and I was making $50,000 a year by age 19 in Dayton, Ohio. And you're like, okay.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  But then I was noticed that I was spending $65,000 a year. And I had my first experience with debt at, at, at age 19. And I said, oh, okay. Well, I thought $50,000 a year would make me happy. Not student loan debt, a different type of debt. Right, right. Yeah, it was, it was credit card debt. It was just consumer debt, right? You know, there's, there's $12 trillion in, in consumer debt in our country right now. 12 trillion. That's not including student loans. No, that, that part of that is student loans. So, so, so student loans, mortgages, cars, credit cards. The, the average American has four credit cards in his or her wallet. Oh, my gosh. The, the. One in 10 Americans has 10 or more active credit cards in his or her wallet.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  One in 10 Americans. Has 10 or more. Ten or more. I had 14. And so, so I continued to climb that corporate ladder because I realized that, you know what? $50,000. I thought it was gonna make me happy, but it's not. I'm spending 65. Maybe I need to adjust for inflation. Right? Sure. So, and when I started making 65,000, of course, I was spending 80,000. That's not enough. It's never enough, right? And so, by the time I was making six figures, I was spending even better than that. So, I had massive amounts of debt. I had six figures worth of debt, not counting my mortgage. If you add my mortgage in there, it was about, about half a million dollars in debt. And, and I felt overwhelmed. And so, I kept trying to pacify myself with, the same way many Americans do,

• 7:34Speaker 01

  with stuff, the accumulation of stuff to try to fill this void that I felt inside. But of course, that didn't fill the void. It, it basically widened the void. And so, I felt more discontent and stress and overwhelmed. And so, I was working more. And I forsook the things that were, that were most important to me. Right? Now, I said the certain things were important to me. I said my health was important. Right? But I weighed- When'd you work out? Right. I weighed 80 pounds more than I weigh now. Wow. And I said my relationships were, were important to me. But really, I was spending most of my time with those tertiary relationships. The, the, the networking buddies, the executives, the coworkers. And, and there's nothing wrong with those people. I mean, many of them were great people,

• 8:17Speaker 01

  but they didn't share the same values that I shared. And, and because of that, I wasn't allocating time to the people closest to me. My, my wife, or to my family, or my closest friends, because I figured, oh, they'll understand. Right? I'm off being successful. By age 27, I was the youngest director in my company's 140-year history. I had 150 retail stores that I was responsible for. I know that's really ironic with the whole minimalism thing now, the 150 retail stores. But I was on this- Which company was this? It was a telecom company in the Midwest. Cool. Yeah. And so, I was- I was going through, I was just going through the motions of continuing to climb the ladder.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  And I, there were these guys who I really aspired to be like, and I had this whole plan laid out for myself. I was gonna be a, a vice president by age thirty-two, a senior vice president by age thirty-five, a C-level executive by age forty, and then you're set, right? But as I climbed this ladder, I got closer to these guys and realized that many of them were kinda miserable. They were on their third marriage. I, I, my boss had his second heart attack. I worked with a guy who was thirty years old, he was three years older than me, who had his first heart attack at age thirty. And, and so, of course, what I tell myself, but I'll be different, right? I'm not gonna be like those guys. But if you follow the same recipe,

• 9:41Speaker 01

  you're going to get the, the same pie that, that they've baked. And so, I realized, you know what? I, I need to make some changes, but I don't know what. And then, in two thousand nine, when I was twenty-eight, my, my mother died and my marriage ended, both in the same month. Holy cow. And, and these two events forced me to look around and start to question what had become my life's focus. And I realized, I, I was so focused on so-called success and achievement, and especially on the accumulation of stuff, the trophies of, of success. Like, look at me, I have two Lexuses, and I have this, I have that, I have the bigger house, and, and, and... The golf membership, or whatever. Yeah, yeah, the racket club membership, actually.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  And, and so, I had, I had these, these things, and here's, here's the thing I wanna get across. So, there's nothing inherently wrong with stuff. We all need some stuff. The problem isn't consumption. The problem is this compulsory consumption. Buying things because that's what we think we're supposed to do. We, we've been sold this meme of the American dream. If you get this, then you will be happy, as if there is a template for happiness. And in fact, I think that's one of the, the bigger problems, is, is we are chasing happiness. For the longest time, that's what I did. I chased happiness when, and that forced me to, to really forsake what was important.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  In fact, I was at a point in my life when I was very narrowly successful, right? Like, I had the job title. Right. But I wasn't... I wasn't broadly successful and it's because I there wasn't a lot of meaning in what I was doing. We all have to earn a living. I understand that, but but I was so focused on on just accumulating more money and status and identity. My whole life was wrapped up in that identity. I mean, when you meet someone, what's one of the first questions they ask you? Well, they ask you, what do you do? I don't ask that question. Exactly. Right. Well, and so when I was, you know, and I had the bigger problem for me is I had this impressive job title, right? Because when you think about that question, like, what

• 11:55Speaker 01

  what does it mean? It's such a broad question. What do you do? I drink water. I walk down the street. I go to concerts. I read books. Oh, you're asking me, where do you work? How much money do you earn? What's your job title? So I can compare you to me on the socioeconomic ladder. Yes. Now, we don't posit the question that way, because if we did, we'd sound like a real jerk. If I if I if I said, well, how much money do you make? And where do you work? You'd be like, wait a minute, like, that's that's a weird question. Why are you asking me? So instead, we used to just say, what do you do? And then we're supposed to recite our job title and then spend 15 minutes talking about something we may or may not be passionate about. Yeah. And so I I didn't experiment when I was back in the corporate world. And when I said,

• 12:36Speaker 01

  okay, people keep asking me, like, what do you do? And I need to untether from this identity. And the only way for me to untether from this identity is to let go of that answer. And so when I did this for a year, and when people said, um, what do you do? I'd say, I'm really passionate about writing. See, for the past decade, I had written fiction, and that was really the thing I was passionate about, really enjoyed doing. Now, notice, I didn't say I'm a writer, because then you start getting the accusatory questions, right? You get the, oh, really? Um, you're a writer. Who's your publisher? Who's your agent? Have you written anything I would have read? Or or you oh, so you're saying you don't have a job?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Right, right. And so I would just instead of talking about the the noun, I'm a writer, I would talk about the verb, what I'm actually passionate about doing, the creating. And for me, that was writing. And I'd flip the question around. Instead of saying, what do you do? I'd say, what are you passionate about? And that would change the whole trajectory of our, of our conversation. Someone say, oh, I'm passionate about snowboarding. They might be an accountant, but they're passionate about snowboarding or they're passionate about playing basketball or whatever it may be.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  The conversation is much richer at that point.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  You guys can connect and relate in different areas. I always ask, what are you excited about?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:49Lewis Howes?

  Right now in your life? What are you most excited about in your life?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:51Lewis Howes?

  And that brings up the same thing, usually about what they're passionate about. I'm excited about this passion project of mine.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Uh huh. Something, something I'm working on or, or, you know, something that my family's going through, my kids are doing, whatever. It's something that I'm excited about. And sometimes it can be your vocation. That's okay. I, I just talked about an accountant earlier. Uh, our accountant back in Missoula, Montana, he is passionate about accounting. Now, I don't know how someone could personally be passionate. I could not be.

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  People love numbers. They love like figuring out the solutions, you know, solving the problems.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Now, uh, my guess is knowing you, you, it'd be very difficult for you to be passionate about accounting, right?

• 14:26Lewis Howes?

  I would not love it.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. And same for me. It'd be hard for me to be passionate about accounting. Now there are other people who are passionate about horseback riding, right? I couldn't see myself being passionate about horseback riding either, and that's okay. The, the, the key is that like, there isn't one thing that we were born to do with our lives, right? You, you weren't born to be an astronaut or a yoga teacher or an accountant. Uh, the, the truth for me was that what I was doing as a vocation didn't necessarily align with my values, with my beliefs, with my interests, with my desires. And, and as I started to figure out what my values were,

• 15:04Speaker 01

  I realized that what I was doing with my time didn't align with the person I wanted to become, the person I aspired to be. And so after those two events happened with me, my, my mother died, my marriage ended. I, I stumbled across this thing called minimalism. And it started with, with a guy named Colin Wright. We were talking before. He's a guy who, who moves to a new country every four months. And everything he owns fits in his backpack. And I admired that, but that's not something I want to do. I don't want to be the peripatetic writer who travels everywhere. And that was really cool. But what I admired about it is he said this thing called minimalism allowed him to focus on what he was passionate about. For him, that was travel. And so he writes about his travel experiences.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  And, and that was really cool. But I didn't want to just be this traveling guy.

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  That just goes.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so maybe that's what minimalism was, I thought at first. But then I stumbled across guys like, like Leo Babauta and his wife Eva, and their six kids. And I said, oh, there's minimalist families. Wait a minute.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  They live in society. They don't just like wandering around. Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and you know, they're not off the grid or anything. They actually live in, in the city, right?

• 16:14Lewis Howes?

  They have a laptop. They have a cellphone.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah. And, and although they don't have to, the, the question is like, what actually adds value to your life? And I realized that, that I owned a lot of stuff. Did you know the average American household has 300,000 items in it?

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  300,000. But I, I think most of us aren't hoarders. We, we just, we hold on to a lot of stuff. We hold on to all these supposed memories, right? And I know that's what I was doing. It's what my mom did when I went to deal with her stuff. And, and I realized that, you know what?

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Some of the stuff actually adds value to my life, but I don't know what. And so I, I started small because I had attachment to so many things in my life. I had given so much meaning to my stuff. And I said, I need to try to get rid of some of this. Like some of it's in the way. I don't know what, what's actually adding value. And so, uh, over the course of 30 days, I just started like, I said, I'm going to let go of one thing a day, one item a day, each day for 30 days. And what, what would happen if, if, if I did that? Well, of course you're not going to put a big dent in 300,000 items.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I, I probably still had, I, I had 300,000 items, but I was a very well organized hoarder. So like, it wasn't, I wasn't a candidate for the TV show necessarily. Yeah, there was an ordinal system of bins and and and so, yes, there was a lot of stuff that was very well hidden. Basically, it was organized hoarding. And so I said, I'm gonna get rid of an item a day for 30 days. Well, of course, once you get momentum, I I got rid of way more than 30 items in the first 30 days.

• 17:48Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if I'd do that because I would, I just want to get rid of all of it at once. I'd be like, let's just purge it all. Yeah, go through this room, you know, right now.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Well, that's actually great because so I spent about eight months getting rid of so from that beginning, it took me about eight months to radically simplify my life. And I, over those eight months, I got rid of about 90% of my possessions.

• 18:08Lewis Howes?

  Still 50,000 items, whatever.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. It's like, I don't, I don't know what's left. It's certainly not like Colin, who owns, you know, 52 items and they all fit in his backpack or whatever. For me, it was like, you can come to my house today and you're gonna be like, oh, this guy's really tidy. You're not gonna say, oh, my God, this guy's a minimalist, right? And and what adds value to my life today may may be different five years from now or whatever. Like, when I first embraced minimalism, I was 28 years old. Seven years later, I have a three year old, I have a partner, you know, our needs are appreciably different from when I was, you know, a single guy sort of out living on my own. Although it's not my values aren't different. And I think that's what's important is identifying what is important in my life and what is going to, what items, what material possessions are

• 18:51Speaker 01

  going to augment that experience and not get in the way.

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  And and so letting go allowed me to figure out the paradox of minimalism is I get far more value from the material items I own now than by watering them down with hundreds of thousands of items.

• 19:07Lewis Howes?

  It's kind of like you were the original magic guide of tidying up, right? Like, that book came out like a year ago, didn't it?

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, we, when Ryan and I were, we were on a book tour for our second book, Everything That Remains, and I think it came out right around that same time.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  That thing blew up, man.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  It really did. And I think a lot of the professional organizers really get it, that scene of I always say the easiest way to organize your stuff is to get rid of most of it. Yes. I think professional organizers understand that. I think the problem that we run into with us amateurs, and me being an amateur organizer, what I've realized is that most people just try to cover up the problem by organizing. And this is what I did. I'd go to the Container Store and buy all these containers and have this whole system for hiding stuff in my basement. Didn't need the stuff in the first place. Exactly, right? And so, when I simplify my life, people at work started coming up to me and saying,

• 20:03Speaker 01

  you know what, you seem less stressed. You seem so much calmer. And I didn't tell, I didn't jump up and say, "Look at me, I'm becoming a minimalist, and all of you need to too." I wasn't out proselytizing. I wasn't out trying to convert anyone to minimalism. Right. In fact, I'm still not trying to convert anyone to minimalism. I just want to share a recipe that's worked really well for me in hopes that some people could tweeze out a few ingredients and apply it to their own life in some way. And so, after I let go, my best friend of 20 something years, a guy named Ryan Akademis, we worked together, we climbed the corporate ladder together, we knew each other since we were fat little fifth graders. And he came to me one day and he said, "Why the hell are you so happy?" And I said, "Let me talk to you about this thing called minimalism."

• 20:48Speaker 01

  And I explained how I'd let go and sort of purged 90% of my possessions over the last eight months. And he's like, he was like you, because he's like, "You spent eight months getting rid of your stuff? Like, that sounds really awesome. I want to do it now." Yeah, right? And I'm like, "Okay." He's like, "How can I become a minimalist?" In a week. Yeah, pretty much. And so, he came up with this idea called a packing party, where the easiest way to start to deal with your stuff, and you know, whenever you move, you realize like, "Oh, I've got a lot of stuff to move," right? So he boxed up everything in his 2,000 square foot condo in Dayton, Ohio. And, I mean, literally everything. He had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two living rooms.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  A single guy with a cat in two living rooms. And he's like, "Why do I have all this stuff?" So he boxed up everything as if he were moving, put it all in his second... Second living room stacked halfway to his 12 foot ceiling and and said, okay, over the next three weeks, I'm going to unpack only the items I truly need. And I don't know what's in all these boxes for sure, but you know, so that first night, he's unpacking a toothbrush and some toothpaste and then clothes for work the next day, a bed and bed sheets, he even packed up his furniture, like everything as if he were moving. And over the course of of about three weeks, he had unpacked about 20% of his stuff, but 80% of his stuff was still in boxes.

• 22:08Lewis Howes?

  My gosh.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  And he looked at this mountain of stuff. I remember going over to his condo and he's like, Josh, I don't even remember what's in most of these boxes. All of these things that I worked so hard for over the last decade.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  It's supposed to make me happy, but it's not doing its job. And so he donated or sold all of it. And about a month later, he came to me and he said, I think some other people would find value in in this message, you know, and Josh, you've written for a while. Do you think you could write some nonfiction stuff? And so we started a website. We didn't even know it was called a blog at the time.

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  You're a partner now.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So Ryan, Ryan said, yeah, I think we could share this. And so we started the minimalist.com and that was about six years ago. And and I think the cool thing is people started to find value in in that message. We were still working in the corporate world at the time and and still letting go and realizing you could start to, you could live a regular life without without, you know, being a hermit or a nomad or an ascetic or a monk or something like that.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Why do you think humans are so wired to be dissatisfied?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  I think, so they did an experiment with some chimpanzees a few years ago. And and it's interesting because if you look at, if you give a chimpanzee a banana, it's going to eat a banana, right? I mean, it's just it's wired to do that. We're all wired to eat, right? And if you give it enough bananas to eat and share, it will eat and share the bananas. If you give it a horde of bananas, it will try to kill other chimpanzees that try to take it. And I think we're If you get like a chest of them, like a ton of them. Yeah, yeah, like if you fill this room here with bananas, it will try to fight off and kill other chimpanzees. They want to take one. Yeah, yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Uh, we don't know why exactly, but, but we, but we know that, that there's something about this overabundance of, of stuff that, that the scarcity, this idea of scarcity comes, starts to come into play. And, and, and we literally will hoard. And I think it's the same psychology with, with material possessions. People do that with money too and other things, yeah. Yeah, and, and there's nothing wrong with money. I mean, I'm certainly not allergic to money. Uh, but, but it's no longer the primary driver for doing what I do. And, and I no longer worry about money the same way I used to,

• 24:48Speaker 01

  because I'm much more intentional with the decisions that I make with my money. And, and I mean, I think we all have to pay the bills. And, and so sometimes that requires a nine to five or starting a business or, or, or doing something that may not be your ultimate passion project. But for me, anything I do to earn money, it has to align with my values. And if it doesn't, then I have to be willing to walk away from that and find, find something else. Why do you think we keep buying stuff even though we know it's not going to fill the holes? I think advertising does a very good job of making us desire things and making us. Feel not good enough unless we have it or not. Hungry for a food we didn't know existed.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  And, and, and so we, the average person sees 5,000 advertisements a day. So that's what a million or so a year. And, and we are indoctrinated by these things. And, and so I don't think advertisements are inherently bad, but I think seeing that many messages, that, that many discreet bits of input every single day is inherently problematic. And so the, the, the question is how, how can I turn the volume down on that? So, so that I can make more deliberate decisions with my attention? Cause it's not just money we're spending. It's time, it's attention. These are other resources that are even more important than money. Right. What about the internet? How do you think the internet's increased consumerism?

• 26:18Speaker 01

  I think, well, technology, it's weird because it seems a bit quixotic to think that we can fix our, our problem of, of consumption with a different type of consumption, right? And so, um, a friend of mine named Cal Newport, are you familiar with, with Cal? Sounds familiar. He, he wrote a book called So Good They Can't Ignore You. I've heard of it. Um, and he wrote a book recently called Deep Work. Uh, he just had a TEDx talk come out this past month called Quit Social Media. And he advocates for just quitting, getting off social media altogether. Now, I, uh, full disclosure, I'm on social media. Um, but, but he talks about how, how they've aggregated our attention. Uh, social media is, is engineered

• 27:02Speaker 01

  to aggregate our attention, to give us these, these ephemeral bursts of pleasure, these likes and retweets and shares and whatever else to, to keep coming back for more. It's tantamount to having a, a slot machine. Mm-hmm. It, because you're constantly pulling to see if you've won. The problem is though, it's now we're carrying around the slot machine in our pocket all day and constantly pulling that lever to see if I've, I've won more attention. And so I don't think that's inherently bad either, but I think it can be problematic if that is the purpose that we use it for. I, I'm not as, as strict as someone like Cal would be. I find value in social media. I use it as a, as a platform to disseminate information. Yeah.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  And to communicate with others. But I, I can see how it would be problematic for many people, including myself. I, 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, I did. I, so, so when I first, 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. Um, and I just started going crazy on paying off all my debt, right? I said, I don't want to be tied to this lifestyle anymore. In order to be, to not be tied to this career, I need to be able to pay off this debt. And so, yeah, I went on the, the ramen noodle diet. Not, not literally, but, but, but. Thousand dollar a month. Yeah. Lifestyle.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  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? And so when I moved to 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?

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  That was, that was five years ago and I have not had internet at home since and I run an online business.

• 28:59Lewis Howes?

  Holy cow.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  And so, so I can tell you the reason I don't have internet.

• 29:03Lewis Howes?

  What about your phone? You've got internet there.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Sort of, sort of, but, but I, I found a way around that too because I wanted to be, I wanted to be able to write about that. So, so it was the most productive month of my life. And those 30 days and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to get it back next month. And so it just sort of continued from there. And it's not to say that I won't ever have it again someday. I, I, we have an office in, in Missoula, Montana. So I, I drive to the office and, and it's a place where I can schedule it. Yeah, I can work there. And, and I have an office at home too and, but there's no internet there, but that, that's a place for me to create.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  You're probably so focused when you're at home writing.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  It, it's deep work. It's, it's full concentration.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  You're in the flow.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:40Lewis Howes?

  Not distracted by social media likes and who left a comment here and.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so, 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, I do, I go out of my way to like, keep it away from my person. You were asking if I had a picture of something earlier. I had to like go into my bag and dig my phone out because I, I try to be as present as I can and I, I'm constantly failing at that and that's okay. Like I, I'm, I'm not anyone's Yoda. I, I, I fail at all 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, and, and realized that, you know, that wasn't adding as much value as I thought it was.

• 30:24Lewis Howes?

  Disconnect you from your partner or your children or whatever.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and so I, I was so.

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  So no TV.

• 30:31Speaker 01

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

• 30:40Speaker 01

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

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  You had to be with your thoughts.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, 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, because if you're gonna meet someone for lunch and.

• 30:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm running a few minutes behind.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  Texts are really quick, yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Right, I couldn't do it anymore.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  There and you're on time, you're waiting, oh.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you learn how.

• 31:03Lewis Howes?

  What's happening?

• 31:04Speaker 01

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

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  You don't even have quarters anymore, so you're like, how do I, what do I do?

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  You're not remembering the numbers anymore.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  I know.

• 31:17Lewis Howes?

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

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

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

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a great John Mayer lyric, he, he talks about the shape of calling, like, I no longer remember the shape of calling home and.

• 31:29Lewis Howes?

  Shape of calling home, huh?

• 31:30Speaker 01

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

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  Or the, the little dial ringer, you remember those?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yeah, the, the rotary phone, yes.

• 31:39Lewis Howes?

  That was me at like age six or seven.

• 31:41Speaker 01

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

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  So, so, yeah, I, 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, and they're amazing, let me tell you.

• 32:00Lewis Howes?

  But you're so minimalist, you didn't have books. So you rented them from the library.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  No, I wrote them and then I read them. No, I mean, so I, I rediscovered time to, 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, I used it more deliberately. No longer do I have Facebook on my phone, no longer do I have email on my phone. I, um, I use.

• 32:35Lewis Howes?

  It's a phone.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I use it to make phone calls, I'd send text messages, GPS, that's how I got here today, with GPS, Uber, I, I took an Uber to get here. And so, so the technology is there and, and I allow it to, to add value to my life, 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, I could change that by just being more deliberate with, with how I use it.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:01Lewis Howes?

  Powerful, man. Wow. So when did you? Move then, so you moved to Montana a few years ago?

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Ryan and I started theminimalists.com December of 2010. I left the corporate world in 2011. And at the end of that year, so a year after we started the website, we published our first book, which is called Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. And it was sort of about the five higher order values: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution. The ability to focus on, I mean, not just our basic needs, food and shelter and all these other things, which is important, but going beyond that. Minimalism wasn't just about the stuff for me, right? That was the initial bite at the apple that changed everything.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  But I think we get so caught up in just the stuff, we think the cluttering 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 point isn't just getting rid of the stuff and coming home to an empty house and sulking. No one wants that. I don't want to tell anyone to get rid of your book collection or whatever. Whatever adds value to your life, I encourage you to hold on to. But question, what adds value to your life? What is adding value? And so when I had let go of the stuff and started writing about it, people found value in it, and people started asking about writing a book. And so we did and wrote that book Minimalism. And we went out on the small book tour. Over the course of about a year, we did 33 cities.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  So we'd go out for a week and then we'd come back. We were in our tour bus, which is Ryan's 2004 Toyota Corolla. And we'd hit the road and we'd go out.

• 34:43Lewis Howes?

  Just you two or you bring out?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was just us two. And we'd go to these bookstores and, yeah, we'd have these little events. And that was back in the day when we were lucky. If eight people showed up, it was a big event, right? And that was so great. It was almost, it was more like a listening tour. I remember our fourth tour stop, we were in Knoxville, Tennessee. And there was no one there. There was literally no one there. We're sitting there at this bookstore. And we're like, okay, I guess this is it. There's like a little coffee shop there. And like, all right, I'm gonna get a coffee to go. We're driving back to Dayton tonight.

• 35:16Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and as we're leaving... This guy and his girlfriend goes, "Hey, you're the minimalist." And I'm like, "Yes, we are." We're just setting up. He's like, "Hey, we drove like three hours to come see you." Wow. And it ended up being this awesome one-on-one session. This guy who had a lot of sort of issues in his life. And it was a perfect opportunity to have this, this almost like one-on-one coaching with this guy that we wouldn't have been able to have otherwise if, you know, if dozens of people have shown up or hundreds or thousands of people have shown up. And we learned a lot from that, that tour and just going out on the road and listening to people and hearing their stories and telling our stories and figure out what stories resonated, which ones didn't. And that's actually how we wrote our second book.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  So at the end of, of that, that tour, we finished in Vancouver, B.C. We were driving back to Dayton, Ohio, and we had to drive through Missoula, Montana. And driving through the state of Montana, it's like a 10-hour drive. I mean, it's this massive state. We woke up in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It was gorgeous and it just got more gorgeous throughout the day. And Ryan looked over at me and he goes, "Hey, man, we've got to come back out here to write the next book." So we, we rented a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Montana, near Butte. And, and on the side of a mountain for, you know, it was like 800 bucks a month to be in the middle of this gorgeous wilderness. And we wrote that second book or the first draft of it.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  And we wake up every day, it's a negative 28 degrees outside and it's a conducive environment for writing. Stay in and write. Yeah, you can do push-ups and write and that's about it. That's super. Yeah, yeah. And so, so we moved out to Montana and I found, we found ourselves sort of gravitating toward Missoula, Montana, which is the city there. And when we were writing that book, it really came from all the stories that resonated with the people from that last tour. Like, okay, this story really resonated. And we're talking about the packing party or we would talk about, you know, my mom's death and me going through her, her material possessions and trying to let go of sentimental items. And, and so we learned what resonated, what didn't. The things I thought were very profound, they landed on deaf ears.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  And the other things, the packing party was sort of an afterthought and people, that really resonated with people. And so what we learned was that, that here are the things that people find value in. Let's, let's share more of that. And so, yeah, we, we ended up in Montana about four years ago and, uh, yeah, we've been there ever since. What do you think brings you the most fulfillment today? I always look back to those five values and so if my health is lacking, then I need to repair that.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  That's the first thing.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and I think they're all tied though. If my relationships are lacking, and it means if I'm not giving to them, or if I'm not getting what I need from those relationships, then I have to question why, right? And so if I'm not creating, if I'm not passionate about this creativity or this craft, then I'm lacking. If I feel like I'm not growing, or if I'm not giving to the world in a meaningful way, then any of those areas, if any of those areas are empty, right, that's the weak link and I need to go back and fix that. And it's constant. Every day I'm trying to look at how do I serve these values in my life? And if I'm not serving them, then I need to be honest with myself and find a way to fix that.

• 38:40Lewis Howes?

  How does someone, is there like a minimalist assessment test that people can take? Where you can ask a number of questions to yourself, you know, where your stuff is owning you as opposed to you are owning your stuff? And you're in control of your life. Is there like a few questions you could ask people listening that's like?

• 38:56Speaker 01

  There's one question in particular that I would ask. How might your life be better with less? It's a counterintuitive question at first, right? Because we're always thinking about more. How do I get this? How do I bring this into my life? How do I achieve that? How do I take on this new responsibility, this new project? How do I get this promotion?

• 39:16Speaker 01

  But how might my life be better with less? That's a different question. For me, at first, it was less commitment, less financial obligation. You know, for me, I had all that debt. And so the first benefit for me was regaining control of my finances and developing a plan to deal with that. And to do that, I had to be less focused on the stuff. I had to sell a lot of stuff. I had to stop accumulating and buying things because the price tag is one cost, but then there's all these other costs as well. You have to have the space to store it, or to clean it, or to take care of it, or to charge it, or to whatever, put gas in it, all of these things. And so by asking that question.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  How might your life be better with less? You identify what the benefits are for you and they're different for everyone. I had a 93 year old come to our last event in San Diego. And she came in the hug line afterward and she goes, I just want you to know that she brought three generations of daughters. So her, her, her daughter, her granddaughter and her great granddaughter with her. And she goes, I just want you to know that I'm 93 years old and I am finally simplifying my life for the first time. Wow. Uh, we had a 13 year old show up in Omaha, Nebraska. And I'm like, hey buddy, did your mom drag you out here? I see your mom, you're with your mom here. He's like, are you kidding me? I dragged her out here because I thought maybe my parents could find some, some value, some benefits in this minimalist message. That's cool.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  And what I learned is the benefits are going to be different for everyone, but we're all asking the same question. It's how do I live a more meaningful life? And, and part of that has to do with just changing our focus to figure out what's important.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I would say, I mean, I bet if you came into my place right now and you looked around, you wouldn't think I'm a minimalist, but I really don't accumulate a lot of things.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  I would think you're intentional.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, very intentional. Like it's all, you know, I don't want to have a blank room in here. So I have some stuff on the, you know, it's intentional things.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:13Lewis Howes?

  But this is like, pretty much it. When I moved to LA, I had two bags, a laptop and a guitar.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  Minimalist.

• 41:19Lewis Howes?

  I didn't have anything else. I, in Ohio, I got rid of all my stuff, moved to New York City and I had two bags when I came here to LA. And I really don't need much. You know, I've got an, uh, an older car. It's a $4,000 car that I bought.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 41:32Lewis Howes?

  But I'm not looking to buy new things.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:35Lewis Howes?

  I would say I'm looking to have impactful things and, and updated equipment that I could use to produce better quality content.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Tools though, right?

• 41:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes, exactly.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think, I think that's how a lot of the things are.

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  This is my home and my office.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:48Lewis Howes?

  So it's like I'm maximizing my space.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 41:51Lewis Howes?

  And I, you talk to my assistant, I purge probably every few months because I get a bunch of like, Just packages and bags like constantly like gear from people always sending me stuff.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:01Lewis Howes?

  I'm just trying to purge it as often as I can to make my closet simple and clean and organized and just is minimal, but not to the extreme. You know what I mean?

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. For me, minimalism isn't a radical lifestyle. It's a practical lifestyle and and my version of minimalism is going to look different from your version. It's going to look different from Leo's version who has six kids. His will necessarily look different. I'll tell you this, Leo is the ultimate minimalist. He washes his shirts in the sink still.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  He doesn't make his family do that, but he does it as a ritual and to show that he can, he doesn't have to have this attachment to these things. And I find-

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  I like the washer and dryer. I don't know.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  No, I-

• 42:40Lewis Howes?

  I like simplicity.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  I have a washer and dryer. I do too, but he finds value in that ritual.

• 42:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  And so that's different for him. And what I've realized is that as a minimalist, everything I own serves a purpose or it brings me joy. So whether it's it was serving a purpose, like the equipment that you have here, that all, those are all tools or they bring you joy, like aesthetic joy. Like you have these photos and artwork and things on the walls and on hangers and things like that. That serves an aesthetic purpose as well. And so it brings you joy in some way. And so I think that's great. I don't want people to deprive themselves or think that's necessary. Now, you can temporarily deprive yourself. I think sometimes that's, that's helpful. If you remove something from your life for a temporary period of time, like I did with the cell phone, to figure out, when I bring it back in, does this actually add value? And if so, how can it add the most value to my life?

• 43:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What do you think somewhere could, what do you think people listening could do to get started? Whether they want to say, I want to get rid of some things or I want to be more minimalist or more intentional.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 43:39Lewis Howes?

  Is there one post that we could refer them to? Is there a set of three things they can start with? What's something they could do?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So start with, start with that question. And that one's so important because you need to identify what the benefits are for you. We all know instinctually how to declutter your closet, right? So you're never going to see me and Ryan write about, here are the 67 ways for you to declutter your closet.

• 43:58Lewis Howes?

  Go get the magic guide of tidying up.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not opposed to that, but it's just not, it's just not my thing. We don't write the how to stuff. We write the why to stuff. And so it's important for me to understand the why to, but some tips for how to, I mean, I'll give you three things really quickly. Number one is 30 Day Minimalism Game. You can find that at theminimalists.com/game. Here's how it works.

• 44:20Lewis Howes?

  We'll have it linked up too for you guys.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, great. If you want to throw it in the show notes, that'd be awesome. But basically, I think decluttering personally, just for me, is kind of boring. And so we found a way to make it a little more fun with some friendly competition. So the beginning of a month, you partner up with someone, friend, a family member, coworker, your arch nemesis, whoever it may be, and you decide to let go of some stuff over the course of the month. Now, on the first day of the month, it's really easy. You each get rid of one item. Second day of the month, two items. Third day of the month, three items. So you get that momentum you need. It starts off really easy, but by mid-month, it's much more difficult. Fifteenth day of the month, I have to get rid of 15 items. Twentieth day of the month, 20 items. And whoever goes the longest wins, so you can wager whatever you want. You bet a dollar, bet a lunch, or whatever you want to bet. If you both make it to the end of

• 45:07Speaker 01

  the month, you both won, though, because you've both gotten rid of 500 items, and it's a really good start. And I find that we've had tens of thousands of listeners share stuff on social media now. So if you go to that post, you can find a link and see a bunch of pictures of people sharing online as well. So having that other person there to help keep you accountable, and you keep them accountable, makes it more enjoyable, but also sustains the process a lot longer.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  How does someone go through this, say you get rid of 100,000 things or whatever, because you think it's a cool idea, but how do you do it so you don't reaccumulate those things?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 45:40Lewis Howes?

  So there's a deeper why that keeps you maintaining it?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:43Lewis Howes?

  How does someone do that?

• 45:44Speaker 01

  So, well, I did a few things. So the question that was really important to me early on was, does this add value to my life when I was letting go of stuff? But then, as an experiment, the beginning of 2011, so this is about a month after we had started our website, I needed something to write about. And so I decided, well, we're the minimalists, I'm going to be the authority on this, so I need something to write about. I'm not going to buy anything this year as a New Year's resolution, except for food and hygiene products, right? And so I'm not going to buy any new material possessions for a year. Yeah, no clothes, no electronics.

• 46:18Lewis Howes?

  No new gear, no new tools for your business?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing.

• 46:21Lewis Howes?

  Not even for your business?

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, not even for the business, right? I'm just gonna do this for a year to see what happens.

• 46:26Lewis Howes?

  Food and toiletries?

• 46:28Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Man, was that way more difficult than I thought. Oh, my goodness. Especially with, you know, Amazon at your fingertips and everything else. It it it becomes nearly impossible. But what I did, it took about four months to really retrain myself. Cause I'd be at a store and I'd see, you know, I really wanna buy this glass. I think it's beautiful. I'm gonna buy this. Oh, wait, I can't buy the, I'm I'm doing this experiment. And then, you know, I'll be at the store a week later, getting some deodorant or whatever. And I I'm, oh, I really wanna, oh, that's right, I can't. And and about about the four month mark, I started.

• 47:02Lewis Howes?

  Only get this gift for someone. Oh, I can't.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  I can't, yeah.

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  Write them a letter instead.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:06Lewis Howes?

  Or make them a gift.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Or buy an experience, concert tickets or spend time with someone. So so I still spent money on experiences, but not on material possessions. And so, but by the end of four months, I would walk by this glass and say, oh, that's a really nice glass. I really like that. And that was it. I didn't feel the urge to continue to consume. And so when I, that that feeling has stuck around for the last five years. I would encourage anyone who is eager to to try to limit the things they're bringing into their life to set up some sort of rule like that. Now, you don't have to be as extreme as that. But even now, for me, with any big purchases over $250, I have to wait at least a month in order to to make that purchase.

• 47:47Lewis Howes?

  Think about it, and then a month later, then you purchase if you still want it.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, if I still want, if I still need it, if I still think it's going to add value to my life. And that forces me to continue to contemplate that. And and so I'm asking that question. I've asked that question so much, does this add value to my life? That it's no longer an intellectual exercise? It's an emotional one. Is this gonna add value to my, I'm going to know.

• 48:06Lewis Howes?

  Know in a moment.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you have to be honest with yourself. But also, holding on to the thing, just because I get value from this today doesn't mean I'll get value from it six months from now.

• 48:15Lewis Howes?

  It's like a tattoo. Maybe it's a nice idea right now, but in a year or two, you're gonna be glad you had it.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Who is Jenny?

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it's, but I think it's, it's the same thing. Like, i- is this going to continue to add value? And if not, I have to be willing to let go.

• 48:32Lewis Howes?

  What um, you have a new documentary that you guys put together over the last couple of years, right? And it just came out. Can you share a little bit about it?

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it came out in theaters at the end of May and basically, you know, for the last six years, it's been the Josh and Ryan Show and that's been great. We've been able to share a recipe and millions of people have found value in that and people have liked our books and our blog posts and now the podcast and so that's been great. And so what I've learned over the last five, six years is I started off just wanting to be an author. Initially, it was a literary fiction author and then I started writing nonfiction and really enjoyed writing memoir and went through that whole process. I've become much more vehicle agnostic over the last six years. And I don't know if you know the stat, but 55% of adults in the United States read less than one book a year. So

• 49:23Speaker 01

  if you write, if you just write books, it doesn't matter how awesome your book is, half of the adult audiences.

• 49:30Lewis Howes?

  Won't even read one of those books.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, and your book doesn't have any, any chance. So the people who read 10 or more books is a very slim percentage, but many people will use other mediums to consume different bits of content. And so whether that's the, we've done two TEDx talks, we've done the blog or the books. We wanted to find ways to communicate and reach people and show people that it wasn't this radical lifestyle. So we went out and we interviewed minimalist from all walks of life, minimalist entrepreneurs and minimalist families, tiny house enthusiasts. Do you know Graham Hill? He's from New York. He, so he does this, he runs a website called Life Edited, but he has this, this 420 square foot apartment

• 50:17Speaker 01

  that we have in the documentary and it sleeps seven.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  You can have dinner for 12. What? It has an office in it. And it's because it's all modular. So like this table comes to the floor, these beds, I mean, and it's unbelievable. And he utilizes his 400, every square inch. I mean, it's unbelievable. And so, so then that may not be appealing to everyone. In fact, the, we have, we have one lady, Tammy Strobel. Who's only got one bathroom. That's a challenge. Yes, it does. Yeah, that is definitely a challenge. 12 for one bathroom. And so, um, we had Tammy in there. She had her 183 square foot tiny house. I don't want to live in a tiny house personally. But I admire people who want to live in that and then find a way to execute it. And so we interviewed those people. I interviewed a minimalist architect in Tucson, Arizona, who had this really cool

• 51:07Speaker 01

  plot of land with three houses on it. But they were all, they weren't tiny houses, but they were appropriate. And he kept using this word appropriate, in fact. And I felt like that was the perfect word for minimalism because he said, when he builds a house for someone, he doesn't just go, go to, to their, he doesn't just show them a blueprint of your typical house. He doesn't ask, do you want a living room? And do you want a dining room? Cause people say yes. He asked, how are you going to live your life? And he tries to build a house around that life instead of trying to cram a life into a home. And, and I really admired that because he said, everything I bring into my, my home, everything that I bring into my life is appropriate for my life.

• 51:50Speaker 01

  And, and that's what we wanted to show people. So we got that side of it, but then we also wanted to be more beta driven and, and we wanted to, to show the, the other side of, we didn't want it to just be like this, oh, look at these people in this template for living. That was interesting. So we went out and we got neuroscientists and neuropsychologists and, and a bunch of different people, economists, a former Wall Street broker and all of these people who were. Using this idea of simplifying and living more intentionally, but able to quantify it in a way that really highlighted the stories of these other people who were living this more meaningful, more deliberate life with less stuff.

• 52:33Lewis Howes?

  Sure. It's pretty cool. So where can people watch it right now?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  You can go to minimalismfilm.com and you can find it there, Vimeo and iTunes, Amazon, and several other places as well.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  And what's the main blog, your main site?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  Theminimalists.com

• 52:47Lewis Howes?

  Theminimalists.com, gotcha. And you can get all your books there. There's also information there for the documentary, I'm assuming.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 52:54Lewis Howes?

  And your next tours and all those things, everything that you're doing. Couple final questions for you. What are you most proud of that most people don't know about?

• 53:02Speaker 01

  I'm proud of my short-term actions align with my long-term values. And that wasn't always the case for me. I was always living for someday. I'll get to that someday in some nonexistent hypothetical future. I'll do this passion project. I'll focus on my health. I'll focus on my relationships. Yeah, I'll give to charity someday. But of course, someday is never, it never comes. And so, you know, I turned someday into today. And I'm much more deliberate with the decisions I make today because I realize it impacts not just myself and others, but it impacts the future self and others as well.

• 53:46Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. That's cool, man. If you had a, do you have any tattoos?

• 53:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 53:50Lewis Howes?

  If you had to get a tattoo on your forehead in reverse, that only you could see in a mirror, and you're looking at yourself, right here, what would that be?

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:00Lewis Howes?

  What, a word, or a symbol, or something?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Just a minus sign.

• 54:05Lewis Howes?

  A minus sign?

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:08Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. I like that. All right. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 54:14Speaker 01

  My partner, Becca. She's amazing. I mean, I am truly in love and, man, isn't that what it's all about?

• 54:23Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, man.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:25Lewis Howes?

  How long have you guys been together?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  About a year and a half.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, she has a three-year-old, so I've become a parent in the last... In the last couple of years, and that has been the biggest challenge of my life, probably.

• 54:40Lewis Howes?

  Turning into a parent without.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Learn, you know, learning that, you know, it wasn't something I anticipated, but it's been well worth it.

• 54:47Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Congrats.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 54:49Lewis Howes?

  That's awesome. Um, this is a question I ask everyone at the end of the podcast. It's called the three truths.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  So if this was your last day, many, many years from now, and you've achieved everything you wanted to, you lived the minimalist lifestyle, you have the relationships you want. Uh, and you got to write down three things you know to be true about everything you've learned that you would pass on to the world. And this would be all that they would be able to remember you by are these three truths.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  What would you say are yours?

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Number one, let it go. It's just stuff. Number two, you can't change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. And number three, love people and use things because the opposite never works.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. That might be one of the best three truths I've heard in a long time. So those are good. Thanks, man.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Thanks, Brian.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Um, before I ask the final question, I want to make sure where can we connect with you on social media, even though you're never on there?

• 55:50Speaker 01

  No, we're on there occasionally. I think, actually, that's the best place to interact with us, although we still get snail mail. So if you ever want to like write us, we generally don't do email, but you can, you can, you know, send us a, a nice postcard or something.

• 56:02Lewis Howes?

  You email me.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, we, we just, we, we don't have a private, or we have a private email addresses, but, but yeah, like I just found that that barrier of entry and so I get far more meaningful things from people now and these, these, these beautiful packages and handwritten letters and, uh, in the mail than, than via email.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  Good idea.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, but if you want to find us on social media, it's pretty simple. At the minimalists on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. We'll have that all linked up. Uh, before I ask the final question, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you for transforming your life and teaching all of us how to do the same. I mean, to see you go from such a challenging. 20s where you thought you were on the right track and then became awakened to what actually was and wasn't serving you and committing to make a shift even though it was really challenging, hard, and you constantly do challenges for yourself. It's really admirable to see that you've transformed your health, your relationships, your lifestyle, and the impact it's made in your life and the impact you're able to make on other people's lives. And I think that's what for me is meaningful is when we can set up our life so that it impacts others positively

• 57:10Lewis Howes?

  as opposed to negatively. So I want to acknowledge you for all that you do, man.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  I appreciate that. And I'd like to say the same for you, man. You're doing great work here. Thank you.

• 57:17Lewis Howes?

  Of course, yeah. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 57:21Speaker 01

  So I just spent the last few days at a Rob Bell event. So we have a mutual friend, Rob Bell, and he, he said something interesting while I was there. It was one of the big takeaway. I remember writing this down. He said greatness isn't self-conscious. I just, there was something that I loved about that, that, that when you are, when you're doing something that is great, when you feel the best, the most excited, the most engaged, the most focused, you're not self-conscious about it. When I'm in a flow state, generally, it's, it's when I'm, when I'm writing, when I feel like something is truly great, it doesn't matter what other people think about

• 58:06Speaker 01

  it. It doesn't even really matter what I think about it. It's just I feel that it's great. And so maybe, maybe it's just that greatness isn't self-conscious.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Josh, thanks for coming on.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Thanks, bro. Appreciate it, man.

• 58:20Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate you.

• 58:23Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel cleansed, my friends? Do you feel like you've made it? Did anyone let go of any things, possessions while you were listening to this episode? Or did you think of some items that you could let go? Now, I have a challenge for you. A challenge for you is to start letting go. Start thinking of a few things, whether it's one thing a day. What's one thing I can get rid of that isn't adding value, that is holding me?

• 58:50Lewis Howes?

  Back or just isn't adding value that's just clutter. Think about it, is there something you can let go of right now? Go let go of one thing right now and tweet to me at Lewis Howes and let me know what you thought. Also, connect with Joshua. All of his social media handles are at LewisHowes.com/407. Make sure to check out the Minimalists blog. He's got a great blog over there if you want to learn more about all of his information and how he does everything. And again, share this with your friends. Post it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Find me there and add me. If you're not following me on Facebook, Twitter, especially on Instagram, because I spend a lot of time on there. Make sure to come hang out with me because I want to connect with you and hear about what you're up to.

• 59:34Lewis Howes?

  So come say hi, it's at Lewis Howes everywhere online. And if you are not a subscriber yet, you've got to make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. That's right, YouTube slash Lewis Howes. We are blowing it up there. We're almost at 100,000 subscribers, which pretty much started this year. And that's all because of you. We've been putting out great content, but you've been watching it and you've been sharing it. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm telling you guys, this is a powerful resource, a powerful site. I recommend it because it's something I've used before. It's crowdsourcing custom design to really elevate your brand. I cannot emphasize the power of your brand enough. So make sure to go to DesignCrowd.com/greatness and get your design on now.

• 1:00:17Lewis Howes?

  Guys, I hope you enjoyed this one and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.