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I was a very well-organized hoarder, so it wouldn t have looked like the TV show because I had an ordinal system of boxes and bins stored away in my basement and my attic and in closets, so I did a really good job of hiding my hoarding, as many of us do.
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Welcome to AOC, I m Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with Joshua Fields Milburn of The Minimalists.
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You should listen to this episode if you want to learn why letting go of things opens up psychological space and can enhance creativity and even improve your health.
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Something called a packing party that s probably a lot less fun than it sounds.
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but can result in a dramatic decrease in clutter and that takes the sting out of getting rid of material possessions and a set of rules that will show you exactly what and how to get rid of everything that you don t need so that you can experience the benefits of minimalism without having to go right out and replace everything.
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So enjoy this one with Joshua Fields Milburn.
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And by the way, if you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the AOC toolbox, where we discuss things like body language, nonverbal communication, persuasion, networking, negotiation, mentorship, and everything else we teach here at the Art of Charm.
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If you re in the United States, you can text charmed to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
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Everywhere else, go to theartofcharm.com.
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Also at theartofcharm.com slash podcast, you can find the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show.
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Alright, here s Joshua Fields Milburn.
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One of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you guys is because your path is not that unique, right?
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And I think a lot of times people who come on the show, they have a really unique path, a unique story.
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Your path is not that unique.
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It s only unique in that you ve actually followed through on getting rid of and becoming minimalist in a lot of ways.
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But having a corporate job, not being happy, I think a lot of us can relate to that.
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Yeah, I was remarkably unremarkable, I guess.
0
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You know, I m 35 years old now, but seven years ago, I was 28 years old and sort of living that cookie cutter American dream.
0
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I sort of achieved everything I ever wanted.
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The six figure salary, the luxury cars, plural.
0
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You know, the closets full of expensive clothes and all the cliche things.
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The suburban house with more toilets than people.
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You know, all the stuff that basically filled every corner of my consumer-driven lifestyle.
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And although I was living the American dream, I realized it wasn t my dream.
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But unfortunately for me, it kind of took two events that happened within the same month.
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My marriage ended and my mother died all in the same month.
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So I sort of looked around at what had become my life s focus.
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And I realized, you know, I was so focused on
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on so-called success and achievement, especially via the accumulation of stuff.
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That s how I showed, you know, the trophies of success.
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Although these things were supposed to make me happy, they weren t really doing their job.
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And in fact, the more accoutrements that I piled on top of my stash, the more discontent, the more debt, the more stress, the more anxiety, the more overwhelmed that it led to.
0
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And eventually I got to that point where there was this pinnacle where I had become very successful in a narrow sense, but unsuccessful in virtually all other areas of my life.
0
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This is a story you ve heard on The Art of Charm, you know, a thousand times where people are ostensibly successful, but they re not necessarily successful, meaning they re not living a meaningful life.
0
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And I found out the problem for me is I was chasing happiness.
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I think that s the problem.
0
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You don t end up getting happy if you live a more meaningful life.
0
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This thing called happiness ends up being a beautiful byproduct, but we have to
0
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Define what that is a little bit more broadly and for me it kind of started with Getting the excess out of the way, and that s where this thing called minimalism entered the picture
0
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How did you even come up with the idea, and I m resisting so hard my tactless need to make a joke, like, you re so minimalist, you got rid of your wife, but.
0
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Yeah, well we had, there was a newspaper who wrote an article about us after we moved out, Ryan and I moved out to Montana, and the gist of the article was, these two guys get rid of all of their stuff, including their wives, and move to a cabin in the middle of Montana together.
0
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And so, you know, I think that when you become a minimalist, everything you do is instantly steeped in irony, right?
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Oh, that s not a very minimalist number of readers you have, or you don t sell a minimalist number of books, or oh my God, you have two pairs of shoes.
0
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You re a fraud.
0
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For me, minimalism wasn t this destination.
0
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It was just a tool, really.
0
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I stumbled across this thing.
0
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There s a guy named Colin Wright.
0
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I m sure you re probably familiar with him.
0
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He runs a blog called Exile Lifestyle, and he travels to a new country every four months based on where his readers pick, so he doesn t even get to select where he s going.
0
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And while I admired that, I thought that was kind of an interesting lifestyle, it s certainly not the lifestyle I wanted to mimic.
0
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I m not crazy about traveling like he is.
0
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It s certainly not my passion, but he said,
0
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This thing called minimalism allowed him to pursue what he was passionate about by getting the superfluous things out of the way so he could focus on what was truly important.
0
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And that sounded interesting to me and I sort of fell down that online rabbit hole and was introduced to people like Leo Babalta who has six kids and a wife and lives in the city in San Francisco and then all these other minimalists as well.
0
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men, women, young, old, rich, poor, black, white, it didn t really matter.
0
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The common areas for all of these different minimalists is that they were all living a more deliberate life, a life of intention, and they eschewed this American dream, the status quo of the accumulation of stuff,
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and instead started to accumulate experiences in their life.
0
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And that was really appealing to me.
0
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And so I spent about eight months of my life just really simplifying, letting go of excess.
0
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For me, it started with a question, how might your life be better with less?
0
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And by answering that question, I was really able to identify what the benefits of minimalism are.
0
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And the reason I think that question is so important is we all understand sort of the how-to side of things, right?
0
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Like you know how to declutter your closet.
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The much more important thing is the why to side of things.
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What s the purpose?
0
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Where am I going?
0
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So that s going to give me the leverage I need to actually make some changes in my life and start to let go.
0
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And then that led to another question, you know, does this add value to my life?
0
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I looked around at my house or my new apartment then after my marriage ended.
0
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The
0
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Average American household has more than 300,000 items in it.
0
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Yikes.
0
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Of course, most of us aren t hoarders, right?
0
SPEAKER_01
We just own a lot of stuff.
0
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We have this lifetime of accumulations that we hold on to.
0
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Many of the things we hold on to just in case.
0
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These three most dangerous words in the English language.
0
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So there I was looking around at all my stuff, and I knew that some of it would add value to my life, but I didn t know what.
0
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And so I started asking this question, does this add value to my life?
0
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And I started off small and I decided to get rid of one item a day over the course of 30 days, which if you have 300,000 items, you re not going to put a big dent in that number.
0
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But that wasn t really the purpose.
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The purpose was to get some momentum because I was so attached to everything.
0
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I gave so much meaning to all this stuff.
0
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And so the end result was, of course, I let go of way more than 30 items in the first 30 days, way more, because it became this kind of personal challenge, discovering what I could get rid of, how many unneeded items I could remove from my hoard.
0
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And so I searched my rooms and closets, my cabinets and hallways, my car and my office, just always rummaging for items to part with.
0
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And the more I did it, the lighter I felt, the freer and happier I sort of became as I let go.
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And people around me noticed too.
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I never jumped up and said, look at me, I m becoming a minimalist.
0
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Except for that huge blog that you guys run and the four books that you guys wrote about it.
0
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Well, but not at first.
0
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I was still in the corporate world, right?
0
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I was director of operations for 150 retail stores.
0
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I m living that corporate life.
0
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These two events happened to me.
0
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And all of a sudden, people around me started noticing there was a change in me.
0
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And people at work started saying, you seem less stressed lately.
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What s going on?
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You seem so much calmer.
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What have you been doing?
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You seem so much nicer.
0
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And so that really opened up the door for me to talk about minimalism.
0
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And then my best friend, Ryan Nicodemus, whom I ve known since we were fat little fifth graders,
0
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He came to me one day and he asked me why the hell I was so happy.
0
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And that allowed me to open him up to this idea of minimalism and getting rid of the excess stuff so we could focus on what s important.
0
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And he s a very type A American guy.
0
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And he said, you spent like eight months of your life simplifying.
0
SPEAKER_01
That seems a bit excessive.
0
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He wants results today.
0
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And he said, how can I get rid of stuff now?
0
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And I want to be all in.
0
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I m a minimalist.
0
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Now what?
0
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And so he came up with this crazy idea called a packing party, where he literally
0
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boxed up everything in his 2,000 square foot apartment, two living rooms, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and he just boxed up everything as if he were moving.
0
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And he spent the next 21 days unpacking only the items he needed.
0
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And over the course of those 21 days, he realized that by the end of it, 80% of his stuff was still in boxes.
0
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He wasn t using 80% of the stuff.
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In fact, he couldn t even remember what was in most of those boxes.
0
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And so he decided to let go of all of it and sort of sell or donate or trash all the excess stuff.
0
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About a month after that is when he came to me and said, you know, I think other people might find value in this story, in our story.
0
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And Josh, you ve always written fiction.
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Is there any way you could, you know,
1
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to write nonfiction and we could start a website and maybe add value to other people s lives that way.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, this is a really interesting exercise because if you re packing all of your belongings and you don t use the majority of them over 90 days, you probably won t ever need them.
1
SPEAKER_03
And so, sure, there s some keepsakes and stuff in there and there s some things that you want just for the aesthetics, and we can get into that in a second, but I think it s a fair shake that you can get rid of it.
1
SPEAKER_03
Now, the counterargument that is gonna crop up, though, is, well, wait a second.
1
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What if it s one of those things like a cable that I m probably going to need?
1
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Where do we draw the line for just in case?
1
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Sure.
1
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Like I said, those three words for me were the most dangerous words because they justified me holding on to 300,000 items in my life.
1
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And I don t know how many items I own now.
1
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If I got rid of 90% of my stuff, you know, that would mean I still own 30,000 things.
1
SPEAKER_02
I have no idea.
1
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I don t count my stuff.
1
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It doesn t work like that for me.
1
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But if you came over to my house today, you wouldn t walk in and say, Oh my God, this guy is a minimalist.
1
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you probably just walk in and say, wow, he s pretty tidy.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it s because I don t own a lot of stuff, but that s mainly because I don t own a lot of just-in-case items.
1
SPEAKER_02
And Ryan and I came up with this rule a few years ago.
1
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We call it the 20-20 rule.
1
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And the way that it works for us, and in fact, it s worked 100% of the time for us, anything that you think you need to hold on to just in case, give yourself permission to get rid of it because you can replace it for less than $20 and less than 20 minutes from wherever you are.
1
SPEAKER_02
Now, I think that rule probably holds up 99% of the time.
1
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Like I said, for me, it s held up 100% of the time so far.
1
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I know eventually something will break that won t work anymore.
1
SPEAKER_02
But for me, that rule has allowed me, has given me permission to let go of all those things that I was holding on to, these old BlackBerry charges.
1
SPEAKER_02
I haven t owned a BlackBerry phone in years, but of course, I still had like two or three chargers sitting in there just in case I needed them someday in some non-existent hypothetical future.
1
SPEAKER_03
What if I have three guests and they all have blackberries and they all need to charge at the same time in different places in the house, right?
1
SPEAKER_03
And that s not gonna happen.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, so I don t think we get to this point where we re never going to need to replace anything, but the truth is
1
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that I ve had to use that rule five times in the last five years to replace things.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like there was a pair of scissors I needed.
1
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There was a pair of shorts that I needed.
1
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There were things that I did need, but I was able to replace them at less than $20 in less than 20 minutes.
1
SPEAKER_02
But the cool thing about the rule is you never actually have to use it.
1
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, that s great.
1
SPEAKER_03
And it gives you a sort of release valve for getting rid of stuff.
1
SPEAKER_03
Like, well, this is easily replaceable.
1
SPEAKER_03
You have to get over that whole, but I m wasting money if I buy another one because I already have this one.
1
SPEAKER_03
So you have to think about the money differently.
1
SPEAKER_03
You have to think about the cost of keeping
1
SPEAKER_03
all of these items in your house, both monetarily and just psychologically, and when you weigh that against the cost of replacing maybe one in a hundred of those items at some unknown point in the near future for a low price and low investment of time, it becomes a really easy calculation.
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and it s not even, like you said, it s not just the cost of purchasing the new items, the cost of holding on to it.
1
SPEAKER_02
There are all these hidden costs that go way beyond that price tag.
1
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So taking care of the thing, cleaning the thing, storing the thing, having additional space in your house for the thing.
1
SPEAKER_02
Or now, of course, there s the $22 billion
1
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storage industry.
1
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You go anywhere to the outskirts of any city and you see just rows and rows and rows of storage so people can pay to store stuff they don t use.
1
SPEAKER_02
That s not me casting judgment on anyone.
1
SPEAKER_02
I had the same thing.
1
SPEAKER_02
For me,
1
SPEAKER_02
I was a very well-organized hoarder, so it wouldn t have looked like the TV show because I had an ordinal system of boxes and bins stored away in my basement and my attic and in closets, so I did a really good job of hiding my hoarding, as many of us do.
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Now, back to the show.
1
SPEAKER_03
Some people might assert that it s easy to say that you need less, but from a superficial point of view, it seems like some of this trend, this pursuit of less, is a form of avoidance.
1
SPEAKER_03
What would you say to those people?
1
SPEAKER_03
Avoiding what?
1
SPEAKER_03
Just, well, you know, I don t want to have stuff because responsibility weighs heavily.
1
SPEAKER_03
And I understand both sides of this argument.
1
SPEAKER_03
I mean, have you really never heard anybody say, oh, come on, this is just some hipster-ish right here that you re doing?
1
SPEAKER_02
No, it s funny.
1
SPEAKER_02
We got a question on our podcast recently.
1
SPEAKER_02
It seems to me that you guys didn t get rid of anything important.
1
SPEAKER_02
To which my answer was, you re right.
1
SPEAKER_02
I didn t get rid of anything important.
1
SPEAKER_02
For me, what adds value to my life is going to be different from what adds value to someone else s life.
1
SPEAKER_02
And likewise, you know, I have a three-year-old now and so my life is appreciably different at age 35 than it was at 28.
1
SPEAKER_02
So my definition of minimalism is going to change over time.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so someone who says minimalism is a way of avoiding certain aspects of life, I would say that it s actually the opposite of that or the obverse.
1
SPEAKER_02
For me,
1
SPEAKER_02
my old consumeristic lifestyle was this veil or these blinders that kept me from seeing what was actually going on with my life.
1
SPEAKER_02
And taking those blinders off allowed me to actually see, okay, maybe this is what I need to focus on.
1
SPEAKER_02
Maybe my
1
SPEAKER_02
Relationships which are in shambles i need to repair my health which is the way eighty pounds more than i weigh now maybe i need to focus on that maybe i need to focus on someone passionate about or creativity maybe i need to focus on growth or contributing beyond myself in a meaningful way as opposed to buying the newest car the latest gadget.
1
SPEAKER_02
There s nothing inherently wrong with stuff, though.
1
SPEAKER_02
I just want to be clear.
1
SPEAKER_02
I m not a monk or an ascetic.
1
SPEAKER_02
I still find value in stuff.
1
SPEAKER_02
In fact, I think it s the weird paradox of minimalism.
1
SPEAKER_02
I get far more value from the few items I own than if I were to water them down with hundreds of thousands of other trinkets.
1
SPEAKER_03
Right, this makes sense.
1
SPEAKER_03
Well, you guys can t win, right, because you get all this stuff, oh, your consumerism is out of control, it s a form of avoidance, and then you get rid of everything and people are like, ah, this pursuit of less, it s a form of avoidance.
1
SPEAKER_03
So, I think you guys are stuck, man.
1
SPEAKER_03
You painted yourself into a corner.
1
SPEAKER_03
I m very curious because at first glance, the point of minimalism is to get rid of material possessions.
1
SPEAKER_03
It s about eliminating, getting rid of everything, declutter, throw everything away.
1
SPEAKER_03
Is this just one ingredient or is there more to it?
1
SPEAKER_03
Because if it s just about getting rid of stuff, shouldn t people who don t have stuff be pretty happy about that?
1
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I really think it s about intentionality at the end of the day.
1
SPEAKER_02
I think it s possible to go rent a dumpster and throw all your stuff in it and be absolutely miserable after that.
1
SPEAKER_02
For me, minimalism, it started with the stuff, really.
1
SPEAKER_02
The stuff was the initial bite at the apple that changed everything for me.
1
SPEAKER_02
The real purpose of minimalism has to do with the benefits we experience once we re on the other side of decluttering.
1
SPEAKER_02
So removing the clutter is not the end result.
1
SPEAKER_02
It is merely the first step.
1
SPEAKER_02
And so once you get past the clutter, then you start asking these more important questions.
1
SPEAKER_02
Who s the person I want to be?
1
SPEAKER_02
Why have I given so much meaning to these material possessions?
1
SPEAKER_02
How am I going to define my own success?
1
SPEAKER_02
I think they re difficult questions with difficult answers too, but those questions make way for a much more important
2
SPEAKER_01
richer experience of life than just trashing the excess stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think relationships, ultimately, as you know, there are several stages of a relationship.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what I ve found is that everyone in a relationship is gonna be different.
2
SPEAKER_00
What I find value in, you may not find value in, and vice versa.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I can t just tolerate that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think tolerance is a nice first step toward tolerating someone else s lifestyle.
2
SPEAKER_00
But you re not gonna have a very profound relationship if you just tolerate the other person.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I think what we need to do is work toward
2
SPEAKER_00
acceptance and eventually toward respect and appreciation of the other person s lifestyle and realizing that my version of minimalism isn t about proselytizing.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to convert anyone to minimalism.
2
SPEAKER_00
What I want to do is simply share a recipe that s worked for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
in hopes that other people, including my partner, including my three-year-old, they have the opportunity to tweeze ingredients out of that because they see the benefits in it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to jump around and say, look at me, look how I declutter my stuff, here s how you do it too, because the how-to side isn t compelling.
2
SPEAKER_00
The benefits are far more compelling.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now, it s true, the benefits are obviously going to be considerably different for a three-year-old.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they re going to be different for my partner as well.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so it s helping people identify what the benefits are for them.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s why that question I asked earlier, how might your life be better with less, is such an important question because you can identify what the benefits are.
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For me, it actually started with finances because I made really good money in the corporate world, but I spent even better money.
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I had massive amounts of debt, six figures worth of debt, and so I knew I needed to regain control of that part of my life.
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Was this credit card debt, mostly, that you had racked up from buying crap?
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Yeah, it was credit cards, it was cars, for some reason I needed two Lexuses.
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Lexi.
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There was a lot of debt, and if you add my mortgage in there, my big suburban house, then it s half a million dollars, which in Dayton, Ohio is unbelievable.
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And so I had massive amounts of debt.
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Minimalism allowed me to say, okay, if I stop focusing on spending my money on all of these things, reclaim that aspect of my life, oh, by the way, it helps me repair my relationships because now I m spending less time
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trying to work 70 or 80 hours a week, and I m more focused on the people around me.
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I m also able to reprioritize my relationships, which was a really big thing for me because I spent most of my time with these sort of tertiary relationships, people on that outer tier.
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where they were co-workers or networking buddies or executives, not necessarily bad people, but they didn t necessarily share my values or my interests.
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And I forsook the people closest to me because I was so focused on spending time with the influential people of the community, so to speak.
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And so I needed to reprioritize my relationships.
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And the same goes for my health and a bunch of other areas of life.
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These were the benefits of letting go of the stuff was figuring out what comes after I get rid of the clutter.
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Yeah, this is interesting.
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So it sort of led to introspection in other areas.
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What can I minimize?
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Since your goals are changing, right?
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You don t need to acquire more stuff.
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Maybe you don t need to work as hard or drive yourself as crazy worrying about the paychecks.
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Stress goes away because you don t have as much debt and you re paying down the debt, which leads to better increased health, more free time, et cetera.
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I mean, there s all kinds of things in this virtuous cycle that you can discover through this process.
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I guess I m still a little bit
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hung up on what happens if you decide to do this and your partner or significant other does not?
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Because can you live this minimalist path while somebody else does not?
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Or does that change in focus cause tension in the relationship?
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I think my partner, she identifies herself as a minimalist, although her version of minimalism is appreciably different from mine.
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We don t necessarily always agree on the things that are going to bring us happiness or joy or fulfillment, and that s okay.
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I think ultimately I have to appreciate her lifestyle.
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Now, if I look at Ryan and his partner, Mariah, she is definitely not, he s written about this, she s definitely not a minimalist and wouldn t claim to be one.
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And he s worked to a point where he s able to appreciate her lifestyle.
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And I think the reason he s able to is because they have the same values.
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And I think that s what s important.
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They may have different paths to get there.
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Often our events will have someone come up to us and say, you know, it s great to see a couple of young Christians out here spreading Jesus s message.
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And then two people later, they ll say, you know, it s great to see a couple of guys out here spreading these Buddhist maxims.
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We had an email that said, you know, Muhammad was the original minimalist.
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And what was interesting to me is that
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What you re talking about is just similar values and different paths to get there.
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And I think the same thing is true with our significant others.
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We have to have the same values, but it s okay if we have different beliefs.
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We have a different route to get to that ultimate destination.
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Are there different recipes then for minimalism?
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Is that what you re saying?
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Yeah, I think so.
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That s why minimalism was so appealing to me at first.
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When I first fell down that rabbit hole, I found people who owned, you know, 50 items and everything they owned could fit in their backpack, which was interesting to me.
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But, you know, I like owning a kitchen table and it won t fit my backpack.
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And so I said, maybe this minimalism thing isn t for me.
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But then I found minimalist families with multiple kids and minimalist who live in the city or minimalist who travel, minimalist who live in farms or tiny houses.
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Or in our documentary, we interviewed a minimalist architect and all of these different people who are
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living different lives and they have some overlap.
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And if you put them on a Venn diagram, sure, you re going to see some similarities between them, but they all look considerably different.
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And I think the key is they use this thing called minimalism to restructure their life so that it feels a little bit more meaningful.
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Thanks for listening and supporting the Art of Charm.
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For a list of all the amazing sponsors and discount codes, visit theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
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Now, back to the show.
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What about sentimental items?
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I mean, okay, just in case, but what if just in case I wanna see my photographs from when I was a baby?
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Or what if just in case I ve got something from an older relative that I think I might wanna keep around?
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I m almost just gonna assume here that you don t go, well, just clutter and throw it away.
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There s gotta be some sort of rule of thumb for doing this.
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There is, but the thing that I will remind people of is that our memories are not in our things.
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Our memories are inside us.
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You know, when I was getting rid of my mom s stuff, I flew from Ohio, I was living in Dayton, Ohio at the time, down to St.
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Pete Beach, Florida, where she was living.
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She had finally retired, but a few months after she did, she found out she had lung cancer.
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Pretty quickly after that, about a year later, she was gone.
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So I had to go deal with all of her stuff when she passed.
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And I spent a lot of time with her in Florida that year as she was going through chemo and radiation.
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But the last time I went down there, it was just to deal with her stuff.
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So I flew from Ohio to Florida.
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And when I got there, I found about three apartments worth of stuff crammed in a mom s tiny one-bedroom apartment.
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Now, she wasn t a hoarder either.
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She just had 65 years worth of accumulations.
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There was a lot of stuff, right?
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And so I realized that by holding on to all of these things, what was I gonna do?
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I couldn t co-mingle mom s stuff with my stuff.
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I already had a big house and a full basement full of stuff.
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So I did what any good son would do.
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I rented a storage locker.
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That storage locker would let me hold on to everything just in case I needed it someday in some non-existent future, right?
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And so I rented a U-Haul, rented a storage locker, but then I found these four boxes under her bed.
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And they were these old printer paper boxes, kind of heavy, sealed with excessive amounts of packing tape.
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And I sort of pulled them out one by one.
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I noticed each box was labeled with just a number written in thick black ink.
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Four boxes just said one, two, three, four.
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And I know this sounds like a bad detective novel now, but I opened them up and it was just my old elementary school paperwork, grades one through four.
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And I realized that
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Mom had been holding on to these boxes for more than two decades.
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I was getting ready to do the same thing with all of her stuff.
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See, the memories were not inside those boxes.
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In fact, she hadn t even accessed those boxes for the last two decades.
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And so I called up U-Haul and I canceled the truck and I spent the next 12 days selling or donating pretty much everything.
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And I learned some pretty important lessons along the way.
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Not only did I learn that the memories aren t in the things, they re inside us, but I also learned about value, real value.
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You see, if I m honest with myself, I was just going to selfishly cling to mom s stuff.
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Of course, I wouldn t get any real value from it if it sat there locked away in perpetuity, right?
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And so the truth is that by letting go, I could actually add value to other people s lives.
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So I donated much of her things that I consider to be sentimental things, but they weren t useful to me in any way.
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of it to local charities or her friends and gave the stuff a new home.
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And the few things I was able to sell, I was able to take that money and donate it to the charities that help mom through her chemo and radiation.
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Basically, I realized I could contribute beyond myself if I was willing to let go.
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And when I finally returned to Ohio, I returned with just a handful of sentimental items, you know, like an old painting, some photographs.
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some of her old doilies, things like that.
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And that helped me understand that by having fewer sentimental items, we actually enjoy those few sentimental items much more than by having hundreds or thousands of sentimental items tucked away in storage.
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And I think the last lesson I learned was a pretty practical one.
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It was about photographs.
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While it s true that our memories aren t in our things, it s also true that sometimes our things can trigger the memories that are inside us, right?
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And so before I left Mom s, I took photos of many of her possessions.
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Instead of holding on to the things themselves, I took photos of the possessions.
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And when I went back to Ohio, I went back with a few boxes of photographs, and I was able to scan and store those photographs digitally.
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And those photographs made it easier for me to let go, because I realized I wasn t letting go of any of my memories.
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You have some interesting drills where other people can kind of replicate this without suffering the loss of a dear relative.
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Tell us about the minimalism game.
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You kind of hinted at this earlier where you get rid of things bit by bit, but I like this.
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Can you deliver this?
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Decluttering for me was always kind of boring, and I never looked forward to it, and if you re one of those people who loves decluttering their house, I salute you and wish I had that gene, but I don t, and so I found
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To make the cluttering a little bit more interesting, a little more fun, Ryan and I have injected some friendly competition with what we call the 30 Day Minimalism Game.
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You can get all the details to it at theminimalists.com slash game, but I ll give you the brief overview real quick.
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Here s how it works.
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You partner up with somebody, a friend, a family member, a coworker,
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an enemy, someone who you want to let go of stuff with over the course of a month.
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And it starts at the beginning of the month, and it starts off really easy to give you that momentum you need.
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So on day one of the month, you each get rid of one item.
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Day two, two items.
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Day three, three items, so forth and so on.
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It starts to get more difficult by the middle of the month.
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By day 15, you re each getting rid of 15 items.
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Day 20, 20 items.
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Now, whoever goes the longest wins.
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If you both make it to the end of the month, you ve both won because you ve gotten rid of about 500 items, which is a really great start.
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And if you don t have someone there to help keep you accountable, there are thousands, actually tens of thousands of people online who have been playing the game now, you can just
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check out the hashtag that they use for that and people are posting pictures on social media and you can do the same and I found that that keeps me engaged but also helps keep me accountable when I have someone to sort of go on this journey with.
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Marie Kondo, who is that?
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I think a lot of the professional organizers really get it.
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They understand that actually organizing is the problem.
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Now, I m not a professional organizer.
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I don t play one on the internet.
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I think the easiest way to organize your stuff is to get rid of most of it.
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As far as organizing goes, I think professional organizers get that too.
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The problem is when we amateurs try to organize our stuff, we go to the container store, we buy a bunch of boxes and bins and filing cabinets, and we try to develop a system for really hoarding our stuff.
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And for me, that s a big problem.
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And so, yes, if you re going to let go of your things, sometimes it s good to bring in a professional organizer to help.
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I don t necessarily think it s necessary if you are willing to just let go as opposed to trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
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Minimalism is a response to your quest for a bunch of stuff, right?
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This is kind of like swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction.
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But what prompted the quest
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for all that stuff before?
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I mean, sure, plenty of people collect material things, we do the comparison thing, but was there more going on there because you appeared to be really good at it?
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And now you re searching for that same whatever it is by going in the other direction.
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What is it that you are looking for?
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When I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, Ryan and I both grew up in the same town and we
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I grew up pretty poor.
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I was on government assistance, welfare and food stamps and there was a lot of discontent in our households and a lot of drugs and drinking.
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It was not a life that I would recommend to anyone really.
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We were so discontented and I thought the reason we were discontented is because we just didn t have a lot of money.
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And so by age 18, I decided to skip the whole college route and I went and got a sales job and realized if you work seven days a week, 60 or 70 hours a week, you can make some pretty good money.
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And so by age 19, I was making $50,000 and for a poor kid from Dayton, Ohio, that was just an unbelievable amount of money, more than I d ever seen my parents make.
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And as I started climbing the corporate ladder, I realized that, well, wait a minute, $50,000 a year wasn t making me happy.
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Maybe I needed to adjust for inflation.
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And so I was making $50,000, but I was spending $65,000.
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Maybe I just need to make $75,000.
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And of course, when I got there, I was spending $90,000.
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And when I got to six figures, I was spending even more than that.
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And it was this endless cycle for me.
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And I realized that I was chasing happiness.
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I was never going to be happy if I was trying to be happy.
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The happiness was not the point.
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And I think that s where we get lost in our society a lot.
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We think that happiness is the point of whatever we re doing.
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And I found for me that it s much more important to identify what a meaningful life looks like.
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And then happiness is really a beautiful byproduct of that.
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You see, growing up poor, there was a lot of discontent because we made poor decisions with the resources we had.
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And having more money throughout my 20s, I just amplified those same poor decisions.
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There s nothing wrong with earning money.
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we all have to pay the bills, so there s nothing wrong with having a nine to five to do that, or being an entrepreneur to do that.
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I m certainly not allergic to money.
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The key now is, it s no longer the primary driver for doing what I do.
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And I think that s the distinction I make now, compared to what I was doing before, where the point seemed to be amassing as much sort of wealth as I could, or ostensible wealth, the trophies,
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that I could to try to impress other people so that would make me somehow successful.
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Joshua, thanks so much, man.
3
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Starting small, the tips on getting rid of a few things here and there so it doesn t radically change your lifestyle overnight.
3
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I think this can lead to good things.
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And just personally, I have rules like okay, if I buy a piece of clothing, I have to get rid of another piece of clothing.
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and I ve been okay at following that.
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Sometimes I will admit I get guilty and I m like, okay, this is a jacket and I want it, but I don t need it, but I really, really want it.
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So there s things like that that I will do.
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I will readily admit I m not that great at this, but when I buy an element of furniture, you know, we have to get rid of the other thing.
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When I buy most items, I have to get rid of something else in order to quote unquote make space for it.
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And that s been really nice because it makes you think about the purchases more.
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So I don t end up buying a lot of things because I don t even want to go through the drill of thinking about what I have to get rid of that I already like.
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Yeah, I think minimalism isn t about deprivation.
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I m certainly not a stoic, but I will tell you that I ve learned a lot from the stoics.
3
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And I think it s okay to temporarily deprive yourself of something to see if it truly does add value to your life.
3
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So sometimes I ll do little stoical experiments to let go of something I know I find value in, whether it s my cell phone or I got rid of internet at home for a while.
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You know, I ll do these different things to see if I can bring it back into my life and get the most value from it when I do actually bring it back in.
3
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Thanks so much, man.
3
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This has been really fun, and thanks for using up some of your valuable time and internet bandwidth to do this with us.
3
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Yeah, thanks for having me, gentlemen.
3
SPEAKER_01
I really appreciate it.
3
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I dig this one.
3
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You know, there s something to be said for letting go of a ton of possessions.
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I m a big fan of trying to minimize clutter, that s for sure.
3
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I do get rid of a lot of stuff, but I ll tell you, Jason, I m pretty guilty of not getting rid of a lot of stuff as well.
3
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You know, I ve been to your place.
3
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It s actually pretty good.
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I got to say you re not a hoarder.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s good to know.
3
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I mean, maybe you should come back now that we ve lived here for even longer, because it s possible that you ll change your opinion.
3
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But I ll tell you, we like to get rid of things.
3
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It does feel good.
3
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Because looking at things that you don t use somehow feels even worse.
3
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And I do agree there are health benefits here that I think can really both show up at work with creativity and in your physical health, as well as just straight up sanity in relationships with others.
3
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So if you enjoyed this one, don t forget to thank them on Twitter.
3
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We ll have the minimalist Twitter linked in the show notes.
3
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as well as the documentary, which is available to watch on demand on Vimeo.
3
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We ll have a link to that in the show notes.
3
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And you can tap the album art, that s the little cartoon picture of AJ and myself, in any mobile podcast player.
3
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You can see the show notes, the cheat sheet, right on your phone.
3
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I m also on Twitter.
3
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I post a lot of stuff that never makes it to the show, and I interact with everybody over there at The Art of Charm on Twitter.
3
SPEAKER_00
Bootcamp and Art of Charm live program details, bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
3
SPEAKER_00
Remember, we re sold out a few months in advance, so if you re thinking about it, if it sounds interesting or whatever, just get in touch with us.
3
SPEAKER_00
We ll get some info out to you so you can plan ahead.
4
SPEAKER_01
I encourage you to join our social capital challenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge or in the states here you can text charmed to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
4
SPEAKER_01
The challenge is about improving your networking skills and your connection skills and inspiring those around you to develop a personal and professional relationship with you.
4
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We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show and I do regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it ll make you a better connector
4
SPEAKER_01
It ll make you a better networker and it ll definitely make you a better thinker.
4
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That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the US to 33444.
4
SPEAKER_01
For the full show notes for this and all previous episodes, head on over to theartofcharm.com slash podcast.
4
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This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFilippo.
4
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
4
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Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty and I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
4
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
4
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So stay charming, and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
4
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Thanks for listening to The Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.