562 | Fantasy Self

The Minimalists talk about "sparkler moments," letting go of fantasy selves, the best minimalist cleaning brands, the "Organized Enough" rule that can make organizing your home much easier, and much more. Discussed in this episode: After letting go of several fantasy selves, Julia asks how to keep the version of herself who celebrates small moments. (0:52) What's a "fantasy self" you've had to let go of? (23:09) Big announcement! (31:42) What are the best minimalist cleaning products for your home? (33:57) Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast

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

• 0:06Speaker 00

  This podcast has bad words.

• 0:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, The Minimalists. I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. TK Coleman is here. Coming up on this episode, we're talking about sparkler moments. We'll also talk about letting go of fantasy selves, the best minimalist cleaning brands. We didn't get to that last week, so I wanted to make sure we got to it this week, and much, much more. Plus, on page three, we're going to discuss the organized enough rule that can make organizing your home much easier. Let's start with our callers, 406-219-7839, if you'd like to join the show, or you can just head over to our website, theminimalists.com/podcast. You can record a quick voice memo over there. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber, so we can prioritize your message. Our first question today is from Julia.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  I'm Minimalists. This is Julia from Germany, and I'm a Patreon subscriber. I always thought I lived pretty minimally. Then, I had a baby. And while the baby keeps growing, our 80 square meter apartment does not. So, once again, I was willing to let go of stuff. But in the process, I discovered that actually, I had to let go of some fantasy selves. There was ambitious team lead with all the neat outfits that came with her, even though I had already climbed as high as I wanted to. And there was the version of us who kept inflating a broken air mattress every single day on camping trips, because back then, experiences mattered more than comfort.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Still, my husband and I kept two fantasy selves. His is an auto game. We've played exactly once, but he sees the two of us someday playing it with our little boy. Mine is a packet of sparklers. I light one every New Year's Eve, and love what those few clicking seconds can hold. Endings and memories, beginnings and dreams, impermanence and hope. And yet, with them comes one fantasy self: I'm not ready to retire. The version of me who gets better at celebrating smaller moments throughout the year. So, my question is, what ordinary moments would be sparkler-worthy to

• 2:22Speaker 02

  you? Moments that make a fantasy self worth keeping? Oh, and one more thing. I used to wonder, why Joshua, or maybe my algorithm, seemed to mention three spatulas so often? Turns out, I had three. I kept one. Joke's on me.

• 2:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, congrats on getting rid of two of your spatulas. Julia, I've got to say, TK, let me just start with this. This is one of my all-time favorite questions on the show.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  What do you love about it?

• 2:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Well, her German accent, first of all. I just love Germans in general. You know, I had four Germans come to the New York City tour stop for the How to Let Go tour.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Two people from Poland, a couple people from England, a few other places, Austria, Czech Republic, and even the distant country of New Jersey. A lot of people made it over the bridge to come in. But the thing I love about this question is, I love this concept of sparkler moments. I want to start there. But also, I want to unpack the fantasy self with you. The sparkler moment thing is interesting, because what Julia is recognizing is that a small moment doesn't need a special occasion. You can have these sparklers, and you can celebrate these small moments without waiting. It reminds me of the thing Rob Bell would talk

• 3:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  about, is always eat on the fine china. Every meal is a special meal. And how are we going to commemorate that? These are sparkler moments for us. And I don't have to wait until New Year's in order to light up the sparkler. What else do I want to celebrate? So, maybe we'll start there. And then, I'd love to talk to you about fantasy selves as well. What do you think about this sparkler moment concept?

• 4:12Speaker 03

  I love that concept. So, I have this deck for one question called Last Things, and it's kind of a relatively newer deck. And all of the questions are oriented around, maybe, final moments. Like, what are the last words you want to be heard saying? What's the last thing you want to be seen doing? Or, if you knew there was only one book that you could watch, or that you could read before you die, what would that book be? If you were having your last conversation, what would you have it about? And the reason I like these types of questions is because when we think about things in terms of it's our last opportunity to enjoy it, we're very sober and clear about what matters to us, and we give ourselves permission to just go there. Well, if it's my last, I'm gonna eat this,

• 4:54Speaker 03

  I'm gonna watch this. But when we're in the middle of life, and the last moment is kind of indefinite, it could be tomorrow, but it also could be in 20 years, or even longer, it's easier to procrastinate and put off the last moment, and live for things that are less than what we know we would choose if it were our last moment. The person you're talking to right now probably ain't the person you want to have your last conversation with.

• 5:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, don't say that for me. That's not true. Savvy D's in the room right now.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  So great. Me too. Cat's in the role right now.

• 5:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Time cut. Shout out.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  TK. But yeah, so I love your idea, because we can't always live every moment like it's our last. That's just not practical. But it's useful to kind of take inventory and look at the things we have, and say, what's the big moment I'm waiting for, for the fine china? What's the big moment I'm waiting for to just watch that movie, or whatever? Maybe that moment could be now. Maybe it could be earlier. Maybe it could be more often. Maybe more occasions can be the special occasion.

• 5:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It makes me think about, we have a lot of things that we hold on to for special occasions. And sometimes, that makes sense. But as you've illustrated, you listen to Christmas music every day. And I really enjoyed, you had this photographer actor on one question recently, you were talking about, and he was almost appalled by that fact. Because he didn't hear right away that you, he was like going off on Christmas music, how awful it is. And you had no reservation about saying, I really love Christmas music. I listen to it every day. And people often will then think, well, that must be the only type of music that you listen to. And I would apply that to these occasional items that we own, which is an

• 6:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  interesting sort of double entendre. I use these occasionally, but they're for this occasion. And then also, like, oh yeah, these are occasional items. They're for the special occasion. But the truth is that every moment is a special occasion if I have the right story assigned to it. And everything is precious if I have the wrong story assigned to it. Everything is sentimental if I have the wrong story assigned to it. Starting with the sparklers, or the game that her husband is holding on to, I don't think either one of those are a problem, for a few reasons. One is, by themselves, in a vacuum, a little package of sparklers doesn't take up much space. TK, you have a 400 square foot apartment. You

• 7:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  could find a place for a packet of sparklers. And yet, I think it's representative of a bigger problem. And that problem is the clinging that often happens unbeknownst to us. We don't realize how long we're clinging. It's sort of that Arthur meme, where you know he's got that fist clenched by his side really tight. We're doing that all the time, every day with a lot of our things, because we're saving these things for special occasions, which is just a dressed-up way of just in case. Special occasion is just in case wearing a tuxedo. It's the same thing. I'm going to hold on to this just in case. The opposite of that is just for when. Because there are some things that I have just for when. I have an umbrella, even though I live in Southern California, but it does rain here in Southern

• 8:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  California. It doesn't even always fit into my 90/90 rule, the seasonality rule. But that's okay, because I know that I'm going to use this sometime, so I'm holding on to it just for when. I don't know when exactly, but I know that I'm going to use it. But then we justify, hold on to all these other things, just in case we might need them. And the sparklers alone, or the game alone, not the problem. The piece of jewelry, the sentimental item by itself, not a problem. I remember a lady called in to the show, and she had some sort of religious memorabilia. I think it was a crucifix or something she was holding on from a grandparent during an Amass It or Trash It segment. And Joshua Becker was here,

• 8:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and he was saying, that's not the problem. You can hold on to that. The problem is everything else you're holding on to around that. Because if I hold on to the sparklers, what else should I hold on to? What are all of the special occasions? But the truth is that this moment, right now, is a special. And you can find more special occasions. I'll give you an example. This episode is coming out on Patreon on TK's birthday.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Yeah!

• 9:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So, light a sparkler, Julia.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Happy birthday to me.

• 9:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes!

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Is there a Christmas birthday song? Or, I guess one could argue, all Christmas songs are birthday songs.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  I wasn't gonna say it. I wasn't gonna say it.

• 9:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so what is finding these special moments that are here right now and realizing how remarkable this is, Sam Harris has this great thought experiment. He said, you know, there will be a last time, this fits into your deck idea, there'll be a last time that you hold your daughter.

• 9:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I have that picture of the last time that I had my daughter on my shoulders. I didn't know it was going to be the last time at the time, though. We had just moved to Ojai and she was already long and lanky and liny and, and she was getting heavier and I had her up on my shoulders for walking down our street and I still have that, that picture of us sharing that moment. And that moment, it was special then, but I didn't know that would be the last time I ever picked her up because I got a, a back injury short, shortly after that, not related to it, but, and then I couldn't for a while. And now she's five foot nine and she's 13 and it would just be awkward to be like me putting Savvy D up on my shoulders. And I guess I could, but I'm not going to. And, and so you don't

• 10:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  realize that you're going to get to this moment. This is the last time I'm going to hug my partner. This is the last time I'm going to record a podcast. This is the last time I'm going to drive this car. This is the last time, we got out of an office space downstairs recently that we weren't using that much. And so there was a last time that I walked into that office. And I remember that because I, I kind of paused and I treated it like, oh yeah, this is it. This is that moment and it's time to let go.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  Woo, man, you're tugging on my heartstrings with this, especially when you bring up your daughter. So I have two goddaughters and they are the smallest, cutest little girls. And they always, and then they have a little brother too, who's starting to be able to run around too. And he's getting ready to wear me out, but they always, when they see me, chase me, come chase me, you know? And sometimes, man, I'm an old man, I don't want to be chasing these kids around because they never get tired. I'm going to get tired before they do. Right? But I remember my good friend Isaac, when his two little girls were small, they did the same thing. They always wanted me to chase them. I was much younger, much more casual, and I did. But when I got tired, as soon as I felt tired,

• 11:47Speaker 03

  I just chilled out and they keep asking me for like 10, 15 minutes and then they just get the point. And I didn't feel bad about it at all. What I didn't anticipate was that those girls would quickly get to a stage where they're just like too cool for me.

• 12:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  They, they love me, but I'm, I'm their uncle now. They're just too cool for me, you know? And, and that, that moment that I had was a rare window of opportunity. And so when my two little goddaughters are like, come chase me, I'm just like, man, all right, let's go, you know? And I'm just going to chase them and I'm going to let them wear me out. And that's just going to be my workout for the day because now I have an appreciation based on my past, that this isn't going to last forever. And there's going to come a day where I'm going to be like, man, I'm so grateful that I got all the hugs in. I'm so grateful that I got all the games of tag in, because now my role with them is different. Now the way we hang out is different. We're sitting across from each other at a coffee shop. We're taking a walk, having a serious conversation. I'm walking them to school

• 12:45Speaker 03

  and they telling me about their friends or their problems, but like, man, I will always cherish and remember when we play tag. So I, I think that's important, not just for sentimental reasons, but like a lot of the things that we look at as special, when we put them off and say, well, just for when, we are betting on a future that is not promised to us. And going back to the last moment, the last moment is a reminder of what you really believe, plus a reminder of the fact that that moment could be in your face right now. And so you want to always think critically about how you can make an opportunity to experience the energy of what you really want to do, even if you can't experience the fullness of its execution.

• 13:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  One more practical thing before we talk more about fantasy selves is for the sparklers, the question here is, when do they serve you in a way that lights you up? I mean, quite literally, it's a sparkler you're lighting out, but you know that it's a celebration? Or is this obligatory? Because that's sort of the worst is like, well, it's New Year's Eve. Honey, go grab the sparklers. I guess we'll, I mean, the, the energy behind that is just dead, right? It doesn't feel alive. But in what, how could I use these sparklers or this game or whatever this occasional, special occasion item is? How can I use that?

• 14:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  In a way that celebrates this moment, recognizes how special this moment is? How can I use these in a way where it, it amplifies my aliveness, doesn't extinguish the fact that I am alive? TK, talk to me a bit about fantasy selves. How do you tell which fantasies, fantasy selves to let go of and which ones to explore?

• 14:30Speaker 03

  Woo, man, you need some external accountability to evidence. So one of the most interesting and, and common themes in true crime is something happens, the investigators begin to look into the matter, and there is almost always a very appealing theory early on as to what happened. A theory which if you are right, will not only allow you to open and shut this case, but it'll give you directions for what your next 20 steps are, and it'll give you a very predictable outcome. And sometimes the theory is exceptionally beautiful, right? It's just coherent. It works together. You found a person with the motive, who was in the right place. Everyone can imagine it. It's, it's a beautiful theory. And then

• 15:14Speaker 03

  you find out that you're just wrong. Someone else's fingerprints is on the way, on the, on the weapon, or that person actually clocked in is on, is on camera for being at work during the time this thing happened. And your theory is just wrong. And what's fascinating is sometimes investigators respond to that by trying to force their theory to work. Well, we got to look a little harder. Well, just because he's on video during that time. Well, let's retest when it actually happened to see if there was a wider range where it could have been before. And sometimes they go down a long rabbit hole that leads to nowhere and the real, you know, perpetrator gets away or whatever it may be, because they got

• 15:57Speaker 03

  attached to a theory. And so there's an old saying, which is kill your darlings. Sometimes we have ideas that are really beautiful, but they're not good. Right? We get this when it comes to personal relationship. You remember that Poison song? That girl is poison. You know, just because she got a pretty face don't mean she got a pretty heart, right? We, we have these kind of slogans, just because that dude look good and make you feel good don't mean he's good for you, right? We get that with people, but that's also true of ideas. There are some ideas that are sexy, some ideas that are beautiful, some ideas that are appealing and seductive, but they're not good for you. What's true of our fantasies with people can be true of our fantasies with things. And so we have to check in and

• 16:39Speaker 03

  ask ourselves, what am I accountable to outside of the way this makes me feel? Right? Because you've got some people in your life who can make you feel all sorts of things that make you lose your mind, but you've got people in your life that's like, hey, hey, hey, brother, cool it. Pull yourself together. You're acting crazy right now. You need the same thing for your fantasy selves. And, and so maybe, maybe early on, or maybe at some stage in your life, you got attached into an idea of who you would become. And so you bought something or you committed to something. And maybe the evidence of your life is, this just isn't working. I, I know this is what we say, but part of who I am is not just what I want, but what I actually choose. And I've had five years to play this game. And the truth is, I don't play it.

• 17:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. What is the outcome I actually want from this?

• 17:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And sometimes it is, I'm afraid to let it go. And so I don't necessarily want an outcome, but the outcome that I want from what I'm doing right now, if I'm not getting it, then I need to get more specific about what that outcome is. Sometimes it's like, well, I just want to be happy. That's, ultimately, that's why I'm holding on to this game, the game. I'm either chasing pleasure or I'm running away from pain. And so I'm holding on to the sparklers of the game because, well, I'm trying to run away from the pain of letting go, or I'm trying to run toward the hypothetical pleasure from the hypothetical future in which this thing will eventually become useful through some confluence of

• 18:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  magic where this thing is now adding value to my life, even though it isn't today. I think ultimately, I'd love to know your thoughts on this. I think at some level, every self is a fantasy self.

• 18:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  When we think about the self, I often talk about the false self. The ego is the false self, and I don't mean that as a bad thing, right? I just mean it is an identity. So every identity is a false identity. Sometimes these fantasies are useful or pleasant. And so I'm not against these things, but I also have to recognize that just because I think I am X, then you fill in the blank with that title. I think I am a minimalist, or I think I am a director of operations, or I think I'm a yoga instructor, or an astronaut. These are all interesting titles. They're great descriptors and they're useful labels because we use language to communicate with each other. But when I get real tangled up in that identity,

• 19:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  when I get tangled up in the fantasy self, that's when it ceases to be useful. Sort of the meme of you got the guy putting out all the Christmas lights and all of a sudden, before you know it, he's tangled up in all the lights. And it's like, oh, wait, what happened? That's kind of what we do with our identities. These lights are beautiful and useful if I use them appropriately. But if I'm not careful, I can get tangled up really quickly.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it's trickier than just people waking up in the morning and choosing to be irrational. Sometimes these ideas create attachment because they're incredibly useful to us at a prior stage. They're a necessary part of us getting to where we are or surviving. Let's say you grow up in an environment where your parents just don't really love you and people just don't support you. No one is there for you. And maybe the thing that keeps you from going mad is this perspective that says, you know, nobody's ever gonna look out for me. Nobody cares about me. If I were to drop dead right now, nobody would give a damn. It's just about what I do for myself. Maybe that belief actually keeps you alive and drives you to the heights of success and causes you to treat other people with respect,

• 20:19Speaker 03

  causes you to lower your expectations of others in this way that keeps you from ever being bitter and you're just really productive and you're an amazing citizen. But then you might get to a stage in life where maybe you have a kid or you have a team around you, or you got people that look up to you, or you've got a family. And that attitude of it's just about me. Nobody wants to help me. Nobody cares about me. I gotta look out for myself. You may have to sacrifice that to evolve and go forward in your future because it may be good for your family and the people around you for you to say, even though I'm used to doing everything but myself, it's important for me to build community by asking you all to come build with me, by including you all in the process. And maybe that's hard for me and I gotta redefine myself, right?

• 21:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  And it doesn't mean that that old way was right or wrong. It might've been, that's just the best way you knew how.

• 21:11Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  To get through. And in a similar way, sometimes our fantasy selves are responsible for moving us across the country when we wouldn't have otherwise had the courage.

• 21:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's right.

• 21:22Speaker 03

  Or for asking that person out for dinner, or asking for a raise. Sometimes the fantasy self compels you to do great things. But when you began to run into a wall, at some point, you gotta ask yourself, is my clinging to this fantasy self the thing that's stopping me from going forward? And if it is, you gotta be willing to let it go.

• 21:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And if you don't, you're gonna get dragged by it. And I would say the same thing for all of these special occasion items. I don't have to wait for a special occasion to use the special occasion item because all the occasions are special if you have the right story assigned to the occasion. Yuli, I'd love to send you a copy of Everything That Remains. It's the book that Ryan and I wrote. It was really about identity clutter and letting go of some fantasy selves from the corporate world. And the first line of that book is, our identities are shaped by the costumes we wear. And sometimes that's literal in the sense that I was wearing a corporate suit every day and the shoes and all of the other accoutrements, the cars and the watch and the whatever else I was, I had on my person.

• 22:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But also, what are the other costumes? Is it about my home? Is it about the demeanor that I have, the way that I approach the world? That's a sort of costume. Or maybe these sparklers are part of your costume as well. So I'd love to send you a copy of Everything That Remains. And speaking of sparkler moments, happy birthday TK Coleman.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus. It's gonna be Christmas all day for my birthday. My wife's been asking me, what do you wanna do for your birthday? I think I wanna listen to Christmas music and watch Christmas movies and have a little hot cocoa.

• 23:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Sounds like an ideal birthday. All right, before we get back to our callers TK, let's fantasize about the question of the week. This week, the question of the week is, what's a fantasy self you've had to let go of? We reached out to our Patreon community chat and here's what some folks had to say. Karen said, I had to let go of a fantasy self who already eats perfectly. There's no fun in that. 80% is much better for me. TK, why is perfect the enemy of progress?

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Because it's very easy to be aware of how imperfect you already are. And so if perfection is the standard, then it's incredibly difficult to get started. And it also makes it easy for you to get discouraged because if you're consistent and you do really well for a month, two months, six months, six years, guess what? You're never perfect. And so you feel like someone that's on a road trip and all you know is that no matter how many hours or miles you've driven, you're still not there. And when your fundamental feeling is, I'm still not there yet, you get discouraged and wanna give up.

• 24:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, that's not the disposition I want to show up with, where it's, I go to the gym and I'm still not there. The point of the gym isn't to get there, right? It's the process of getting there. It's walking toward the horizon, knowing there will always be a new horizon. Natasha said, I had to let go of the fantasy self of what growing older would look like. I envisioned Sunday dinners with my children and grandchildren, babysitting my grandkids and weekend sleepovers. I envisioned our spur of the moment shopping trips with my girls and weekend adventures with everyone. Both of my daughters moved nine hours away

• 24:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  and I see them five to six times a year. I guess I did too good of a job encouraging my kids to find their happiness. They're happy and I'm happy for them. TK, it seems that specificity can turn these dreams into a sort of expectation that we just have to meet.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  That's right. A fantasy isn't inherently good or evil. It's just an imagined outcome. But it's our relationship to it that can make it healthy or unhealthy. And sometimes the fantasies we have about our own future or about our walk with others can become a basis for loving ourselves and others a little less when we turn out to be different from our fantasies. And so can we still love ourselves when we don't become all that we thought we would be 10 years ago? Can we still love our children and the people in our lives when they don't turn out to live up to whatever imagined ideal we had for them?

• 25:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and Natasha's showing that, yeah, she had to let go of the expectation that she had inadvertently created. I had this dream scenario, this fantasy self that growing older would look like X, but it actually looks like Y. And sometimes, you know what? That Y is more beautiful. And even if it's not, maybe it's just what you needed or it's what your kids needed, what the other people needed. And so setting down that expectation was obviously important for her.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  By the way, God help me if I don't look like Frederick Douglass when I get older because that's my fantasy self. And I'm convinced it's gonna happen. Man, I'm gonna grow that hair out like that. I'm gonna have to do a lot of letting go.

• 26:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, Tom Cat, you gotta do some photoshopping here. Let's get the Frederick Douglass hairdo going. He was kinda like Einstein in a way. That hair was wild.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  How about you listeners? What's a fantasy self you've had to let go of? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. All right, I got my minimal maxim ready. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox every Monday. If you sign up for our free email newsletter at theminimalists.com, we'll never send you spam or junk or ads or noise or any of that garbage, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. Okay, give me something pithy TK. What's a fantasy self you've had to let go of?

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Fantasies are fatal when left unfollowed. That's my maxim. And I'll give like a little dichotomy for how to have a good relationship to your fantasies. That's follow or forsake. You know, there's a proverb that says, hope deferred makes the heart sick. You mentioned the Gospel of St. Thomas earlier. We're talking about like Gnostic texts and so on. And there's a passage in there about how if you let what is within you out into the world, it will give you life. But if you contain or suppress or hold on to what is within you, it will destroy you. Our psyche is simply not designed to just carry dreams and fantasies that are never acted on. It's either going to destroy us from within

• 28:05Speaker 03

  or it's gonna give us life when we let it out. And so when you have a fantasy self, you've gotta ask yourself, well, is this inspiring me? And if it is, how can I act on it, even if in some small way? And if it's killing me, well, then how can I let this go? Even if in some small way? Or how can I reframe it so that I can make it easier to follow? I think for me, the fantasy self that I had to let go of was, this is hilarious, but it's the idea that I would be so much more rich and successful and further along in my life than I actually am according to the metrics I employed when I was like seven. You know, when I was seven, I thought I would be surely an NBA Hall of Famer by this age,

• 28:48Speaker 03

  definitely a multimillionaire by this age, owning like 10 businesses, having won two Academy Awards. You know what I mean? So many things. And nobody told me like, hey, don't imagine such things. You know what I mean?

• 29:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Nor would you want to say that to a kid.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Right. But hey, man, I grew up watching Michael Jordan. It's like, I guess that's what I'm gonna do.

• 29:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  And there came a point where as I'm getting older and I go, wait a minute, I'm not doing any of the things that I thought I would be doing when I was a kid. Am I a failure? But then I go, wait a minute. Do I like who I am?

• 29:27Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hmm.

• 29:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. Do I like the people in my life? Yeah, my friends are pretty awesome. Do I like where I'm at? Yeah. Do I like my possibilities? Yeah. Okay, maybe it's time to let that go. Really quickly, I have a friend who came out to LA to be an actor. And she said, I'm gonna give it five years. Got to five years, felt like she was getting some momentum. It says, I'll give it a few more years. And after 10, she says, I'm, I'm gonna let it go. And there were so many people that were like, well, you can't. That's selling out. Don't give in, like, keep fighting. And she didn't have to let go of her decision because she made her peace with how much time she give herself. And she was cool with it.

• 30:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  But she had to let go of that attachment to other actors and other theater people looking at her like she failed. And she had to decide, I don't need to be a winner according to their concept of success. I know what my line is. I drew it and I'm content to live it.

• 30:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I think that ties in perfectly to my maxim, which is a practical one. And it's about clutter, but I think it applies to the identity side of things more than anything else. And that minimal maxim is clutter is an audition for a life you don't want.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 30:36Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so imagine if I came out here and saw all these other actors and I tried to, I don't. People think I'm an actor all the time because they see, they've seen me somewhere and they can't really place it. They'll be like, hey, I love your movies or I love you like, or like, I saw your TV show, whatever.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And they-

• 30:54Speaker 03

  They seen a Christopher Walken movie or two.

• 30:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right. Exactly. Yes.

• 31:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And, and so they, if I, if I had to fall, it's essentially following someone else's fantasy at some point. And clutter is a type of fantasy, meaning I thought this would serve me in some way. And holding on to it is sort of auditioning for the life that I don't want. Because I'm gonna hold on to this in case I do want that fantasy life that I know I don't want now. But by letting it go, letting any of the excess go, I'm also letting go of the life I, I don't want anymore. I'm letting go of the future baggage in advance. Okay, we still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to.

• 31:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But first, real quick for our right here, right now segment, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalists. Big announcement, the minimalists present the How to Let Go Tour 2027. Come spend an evening with me. I'm bringing my honest, raw, funny, and often sad solo minimalism show to 11 new cities in 2027. Yes, after three very successful test shows in Seattle and Vancouver and New York City. Shout out to everyone who filled up those venues, by the way. The How to Let Go Tour is expanding to 15 cities total. I'm ending this year, 2026, in Los Angeles on December 11th.

• 32:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Tickets just went on sale for that event and they are almost sold out. Then tickets go on sale for 11 new cities on 11/11. Isn't that perfect, TK? 11 cities on 11/11. I'm coming to Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, Phoenix, Denver, Washington DC, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and then finishing the tour in beautiful Orange County, California. I'm sure I'll be able to drag TK out to a few of these events as well, as well as Ryan Nicodemus. He said he would love to attend a few of these with me. But it's my first ever solo show. Tickets go on sale to the public this Friday, November 13th.

• 33:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But our audience gets early access to the best seats starting this Wednesday, November 11th. Just use promo code SIMPLE at checkout. You can join me for a night of letting go. It's gonna be an evening filled with a ton of heartfelt stories that I've never told in public. Stories about my own failures, my own losses, and how I was able to let go even when I wasn't ready. You can grab your tickets now at theminimalists.com/tour. And you can find that link down in the description. Use pre-sale code SIMPLE at checkout to get your tickets early. And if you live in one of these cities, hit the comments and let me know your favorite restaurant, coffee shop, and museum. So I can check them out when I'm in town. I'm always looking for recommendations.

• 33:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And if I missed your city, then hit the comments and let me know what city you'd like me to visit next. Before we get on to page two, how about we do a What Would Josh Own question?

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 34:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I got one here from Brandon.

• 34:06Speaker 04

  What's up, y'all? This is Brandon from Michigan. I'm wondering what you guys use to clean your dishes? I'm talking wash soap? Do you use steel wool or a sponge or something else? Give me all the details. Um, yeah, I just, I feel like this scrub daddy is just not cutting it. I appreciate you guys.

• 34:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, is the scrub daddy the kinkiest cleaning tool that you own?

• 34:33Speaker 03

  I am the scrub daddy.

• 34:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I should have gotten you one for your birthday and just put a little candle in it. Here you go, scrub daddy. Um, here's the thing, I'll talk about this, what I use. I've talked about, I think I've mentioned Public Goods on this show before. I use Public Goods dish soap and sponges. I have no affiliation with this company, although I'd certainly consider it because I really like their ethos. This is from their website. Our philosophy is simple. If it isn't good for you, we don't make it. And I appreciate that simple and clean philosophy around. I don't want a bunch of toxic nonsense in there. But also, at some point, if I'm going to buy products from some brand, I have to be able to trust them to some extent.

• 35:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm outsourcing my autonomy because I'm not making my own cleaning products at home. Although I have a few friends who do that and I admire it. But I've chosen to take the shortcut and find a brand that works for me. Now, this is an interesting appendix to a conversation we had a few episodes ago where I had a mea culpa. And I said, ah, you know, this is a brand that I've, have t-shirts that I've used that I don't use anymore. But now imagine TK, if we pulled that forward into this. And all of a sudden, I use Public Goods and they're great. But what if, what if we found out that their founder is a bad guy and he's caught up in some sort of scandal?

• 35:55Speaker 03

  I'll tell you a quick little story. When Michelle and I lived in Charleston, there was this pizza place not far from us. And she can't eat at many pizza places.

• 36:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Comic pizza.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  But-

• 36:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I know where this is going.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  No, stop it. You're gonna take us somewhere where we're gonna need another episode to explain your jokes on this one.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  So this was a place that had a great gluten-free pizza and vegan and everything. And so we would eat there whenever we wanted pizza. And there was one time we ate there and we're like, man, this pizza's just not good today. What's, and so I went the next time and I says, hey, did you guys change something with the gluten-free crust? And, and the person working there says, why, is something wrong? Says, well, we just don't like it anymore. It tasted kinda weird last time. And she went and asked, and she says, it turns out we did. They, they get the gluten-free crust from a different company. And we're like, oh, okay, well, it's too bad. We really liked the old one better, but you know, life a choice. We never ate there again.

• 37:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oof.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  We, and, and we didn't even have a conversation, like, you know, we're never gonna eat there again, right? It's just, we just never ate there again.

• 37:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  And I said my piece to them, but I didn't go, I'm never gonna eat here again. We just never ate there again. Why? Because the pizza wasn't good anymore. So my question would be, hey, what if the soap isn't good anymore?

• 37:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hmm.

• 37:21Speaker 03

  Right, it's good to you today, at least, because, because perception is reality with this kind of stuff. What if you find out in two weeks that the soap isn't good anymore? Now the soap is bad. Well, you probably just stop using it and you probably won't have a conversation about it. Unless there's some, unless you told like a million people like, hey, everybody ought to go to Public Goods and get this particular brand of soap. Then you might come back and be like, hey, remember how I told you guys to get the soap? I don't think it's good anymore, but you know, you guys do you. But that's kind of my take on it.

• 37:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, I, I think I feel the same way. And I always treat this segment as not a recommendation. Someone asking, what do I use? What do I own? What do I have? What do I find value in? Because they trust me enough to say, I need some sort of shortcut here. So I'm not trying every single thing out myself. Savvy D and I were just talking about this this morning. He's looking for new black t-shirts himself and he's trying all of these different brands. And the, the thing I'll say ultimately is it probably doesn't matter that much. No one can really tell. I'm wearing a different brand t-shirt right now and he didn't even know that I was wearing a different brand t-shirt. My wife doesn't know it. And, and so I, I think the thing that's interesting here is people are really asking, what do you get?

• 38:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Because I know you've put some attention and effort and thought into this. And so I'm always looking for questions on this front because there are some things I don't put a lot of attention or effort or thought into. Because I can't with everything. There are 500,000 discreet bits of information that I'm taking in every day. I can't possibly give them all my attention. But this is one area that I have given my attention. But I will say this, I'm not really hung up on the brand. I'm pretty brand agnostic here. This is a brand that works well for me. But I also don't freak out if I run out of something and I don't have time to go order it from Public Goods. I can go to my local store in Ojai and just get whatever the cleanest brand there is. And it's fine. I try not to get really tied up in a brand.

• 39:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I especially try to avoid brand loyalty.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  I will say one, one thing for you, and I assume you probably already know this, but- With a segment like this and with the people who follow you, I think one reason why people would be interested in asking like, Josh, what kind of soap do you use? Because that, that's just not a question we go around asking everybody. I'm probably never gonna get that question. But people know that you're very meticulous, very attentive to detail, very conscientious about what you choose to consume. You are one of the most conscious consumers I know. And you're not going to waste your time on excess and you're not going to violate your conscience on any choice that you make. People see that in you and they respect that about you.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  Now, that doesn't mean you're not gonna make any mistakes. That doesn't mean you can't be fooled or taken advantage of.

• 40:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  For sure.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  That doesn't mean the world can't change on you in ways that are unfair to the influence you have on the world. Because how many people out there are like, yep, I've worked with that guy for 20 years. I had no idea he was a piece of shit.

• 40:25Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  You know? Woe is me. It's a thing that happens. So, yeah, none of us are exempt from that, but people respect you as someone that's conscientious and in good faith. And I think a lot of times people are very passionate about being good to the environment, of being responsible, being mindful. And so you represent a kind of shortcut where people say, hey, what kind of soap do you use? And then they can be able to, to have some confidence that you've probably looked into it for them. And even though there could be a surprising red flag that comes out in three months or something, it's probably a safe bet.

• 40:59Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. When I was just on stage in New York City, really enjoyed that event, by the way. It was at the City Winery there in Chelsea and overlooked the water. And I'm on stage and at the end, I'm doing a little Q and A with a few folks. And one lady comes up to the mic, she goes, I just wanna know, where'd you get your shoes from? And so like, we did an impromptu, well, the Josh Own segment right there. And the shoes I had on at the time, I've had for a long time, I'm like, this is not a sexy answer. I got them from eBay. Like, they were used shoes that I bought from eBay.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Thank God you weren't like, these were the shoes, you know, the shoes that OJ had? The black, uh, thank God you didn't do that.

• 41:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so I'm grateful to be in this position where like, people respect my opinion enough, but really respect the process that you talked about, the intentionality behind it. But you're right, sometimes I make a mistake on something I've consumed or the world changes and I have to be willing to change that. And the easiest way to do that is not to stay too loyal to a particular brand. Way back in the day, I used to wear Banana Republic t-shirts. They were great. And then they changed how they were manufactured and they went from being awesome, outstanding, amazing, like your pizza store. And all of a sudden, I never wore another one ever again. And they could be great again, for all I know, but I haven't given them another shot. How about you listeners? What minimalist solution do you use to clean your home?

• 42:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You can let us know your thoughts in the comments, or better yet, just visit theminimists.com/podcast and record a quick message so we can feature your voice on a future episode. Up next, page two and page three, but first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back. All right, y'all, that's the first, like, 29% of episode 562. We'll see you on Patreon for the full two-hour maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions like, what if you regret letting something go? How do you distinguish the technology you need from the technology you've simply become accustomed to using? And what does real humility look like?

• 43:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Plus, a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private episodes on Apple Podcasts, or YouTube Music, or Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Plus, you're getting access to all of our archives, all the way back to the very first episode. And that is our minimal episode for today. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Audio Ben, Spire Jeff, and Dave, Tom Cat, Savvy D. on the couch, actually, he's on the board today, Tom Cat's on the couch today, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here today with just one message, let it be this: love people and use things. Because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all.

• 43:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll see you next time.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  Peace.

• 43:50Speaker 05

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.