We tie a lot of emotions to our things and the outcomes and the achievements. And I think the reason we often do that is because we haven't identified how much is enough. We don't keep asking that question, and so I keep asking that question, does this add value to my life? And if not, I'm willing to let it go.
Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Joshua Fields Milburn, Ryan Nicodemis, and TK Coleman to the show. They are known collectively as The Minimalists. Joshua and Ryan are Emmy nominated Netflix Stars and New York Times bestselling authors. Alongside their podcast co host TK, they helped millions of people live meaningful lives with less. The Minimalists have been featured in Time, Architectural Digest, and GQ, and they have
spoken at Harvard, Apple, and Google. Their podcast is more than one hundred million downloads, making it one of the most popular podcasts in the world. In this episode, I talked to josh make Sure, Ryan, and TK about minimalism. All too often we are preoccupied with amassing wealth and possessions in an attempt to fill the void. Soon we find that accumulating stuff doesn't really make us feel whole instead of turning to objects, The Minimalists ask us to ponder,
how do we live more with less? When we can get rid of quatter in our homes, digital spaces, and relationships, we make room for what's truly important. Joshua, Ryan, and TK talk about how minimalism has changed their lives, allowing them to feel more content, mindful, and generous. I love these guys and I think you will too, So without further ado, I bring you The Minimalists, The Minimalists. Welcome to the Psychology Podcast. The Minimalists Meet the Psychology Podcast.
Thanks so much for having us. Yes, so good to be here.
Yeah, thanks so much for being here. You know, I know that you all are interested in psychology. I saw you chatting recently with my friend Susan David, which was pretty cool. Can we confirm that.
If you saw it, Scott, then we confirm it.
What matters is that you had an experience that is best explained by that hypothesis.
Okay, okay, amazing. You guys are like placed over her eyes. When I said that, I was like, no, so, I'm so glad that you're into psychology, And I thought we could just start with each of you just talking a little bit about yourself as sort of condensed as can be. Why this sort of minimalistic aesthetic touches your tickles, your fancy.
As condensed as we can be. So I have problems with brevity, as ironic as that might be as.
One of the minimalists.
Although there was this time I was at a conference and I was speaking there, and there was this book that they handed out with each of the speakers, and everyone had this really long bio in it, right like, well, I'm the chief technology officer at Microsoft whatever it was, and and these long, really impressive bios. Well, I apparently didn't take mine very seriously because when I had to fill mine out, it just said I'm a simple man.
And they're passing out this booklet to everyone who's attending there. But so many people came up to me because all my bio there was a picture of my face, my name, Joshua Fields Milburn, and then all it said was I'm a simple man. And so mat of people said, yours
is the only bio that I read and enjoyed. And I think fundamentally that's what as the minimalists we tried to get down to the essence, what is essential for us, what's non essential but adds value to our lives, and then get rid of anything that's superfluous, anything that's junk. And I'm sure we can go into our backstories during all of this, but ultimately, I've known Ryan since we were fat, little fifth graders over thirty years now. We
grew up really poor. I thought the reason we were so unhappy when we were growing up is we didn't have any money. And so when I turned eighteen, I went out and I got an entry level corporate job, and I spent the next dozen years climbing the corporate ladder. By age thirty, i'd sort of achieved everything I ever wanted. The six figure salary, the luxury cars, the big house with more toilets than people had, all the stuff right that showed that I was successful, But of course I
was discontented. I was in debt, kind of miserable. Two things happened to me. My mother died, my marriage ended, both in the same month, and those two events really forced me to look around and start to question what had become my life's focus. And I realized, man, I'm really focused on so called success and achievement in our culture, that means the accumulation of stuff to show how achieved we are, how successful we are. But it wasn't bringing
me joy, meaning purpose, peace, contentment. In fact, it was just kind of driving me crazy. I was living the American dream, but it wasn't my dream.
Powerful TK, what tickles your fancy.
The possibility of a TV show to rival a million little things called bat little fifth graders.
I think we've got something in the making. Man, that's great.
Well, I mean for me, I can remember periods in my life where even though I had the things that I wanted, or sometimes didn't have the things that I wanted, it didn't matter because I walked around so heavy in my own soul, arguing with people in my imagination, calling to mind unpleasant events from my past, anticipating improbable events happening in the future, and coming up with defenses against
them right now in the present. And there just came a point in my life where I realize, Man, it's not about my relationship with stuff, the stuff that I'm pursuing or the stuff that I possess. It's about my relationship with this philosophical and psychological baggage that weighs me
down and just getting underneath that and unpacking that. So I like to think of myself as a philosophical minimalist, if you will, where help people deal with the beliefs and behaviors that get in the way of living the
life they want to live. But I mean, that's that's pretty much my relationship to minimalism, and that's what inspires me to have these types of conversations, just really appreciating from my own life and my own grapple with darkness, just how empowering it can be to just go within and unpack your own baggage.
I love that.
Can I ask a TK question real quick? Oh yeah, so when did you join the band?
So it's been about seven months now.
Almost the year now, almost a year last year.
Time goes by so fast. I originally came as a guest on this show about what four or five years ago. Four or five years ago. Josh is like the lebron James, you know how he recalls all the different moments in a game. He can remember the exact episode number for everything that you might call to mind. But yeah, about five years ago I did an episode on here and we just like, really we got along really well.
I had great.
Camaraderie, and we did several other episodes together. And then it was kind of a point like in the movie Office Space, where there's that guy that's just always around. It's like, hey, do you even work here? And I was like, ah, yeah, I think so.
They gave me a job.
Yeah, awesome, thank you, thank you?
Okay, Ryan, Yeah, I mean I mean for me, man, I mean you know, I, like many people, my life started out with a very crappy childhood and a lot of that had to do with our finances and not having the things we needed. So I grew up thinking that I could, I could, I could look externally for something to complete me and make me a better person.
And after trying that through my early to mid to late twenties, I realized very quickly that nothing externally was going to make me any more complete than I already was. And that's where minimalism came into the picture. From that really helped me take a look at my life and really get clear on what my priorities were, and that's what really drew me to this whole idea of simplicity and living intentionally.
Awesome.
Well, thanks to all three of you for making an intro. I don't often have three guests on my podcast at one time, so I'm a little overwhelmed. But this is amazing to hear that from all of you.
Everything we do is blanketed in irony. By the way, well he come.
To the middle, but you own underwear.
But there's three of you.
Which one of these were the underwear that?
Yeah, you know, that's so that is funny. Like people probably all the time are like scanning to see if they're hypocrisy, you know, like, oh, you're really a minimalist, but you say this, It's like, that's why I would rather just say like I'm and I don't do this. Sometimes I think I'd rather just say I'm an asshole than than a nice guy, because if you say I'm a nice guy, people always like, oh, well you say you're a nice guy, Well why do you do that?
But if you're an asshole, then you can always be like, you know, like surprise people when you're nice. But anyway, yeah.
You know. My theory though, is that we are all hypocrites, every single one of us. The question is is like how much of a hypocrite you know? Am I being on a day to day basis. I try to not be one as much, but I could give you a million different reasons why. Yeah, I think we're all probably a little bit of a hypocrite.
I hope that I'm a hypocrite, right, because it means I'm willing to change my mind about something if I'm given new evidence, right. Otherwise I'm clinging to a dogma. And so, yeah, of course people look for hypocrisy. People will catch me in the airport sometimes I have my one carry on bag with me and they're like, I figured you'd be traveling like Jack Reacher. I can't believe you have a bag when you're traveling you call yourself
a like. I guess they're trying to be cute or endear themselves to me, but they just kind of come off as a jerk.
Yeah.
Yeah, Well, I think this brings up an interesting point about integrity. I think the fastest way to cease being a saint is becoming preoccupied with the phenomenon of being seen as a saint. It's good to strive to be good, but the moment you're obsessed with the whether or not other people give you that label, you're a slave to the fickle perceptions, the ever changing, fluctuating ideas and opinions that people have about you. We've talked about on our
show before. You know, this contemporary concern with being on the right side of history, and how you know, one hundred years from now, the next generation can come along and say, everybody who lived during that time period, you're all a bunch of antiles. So all you can do
is ground yourself in authenticity and truthfulness and honesty. And so I think it's good to be a non hypocrite, But I think the moment you get obsessed with convincing people that you're not a hypocrite, they can still control you just as easily. You're a hypocrite. Oh I know I'm not. I can prove to you that I'm consistent. You've already lost. You know, if someone sees you as a hypocrite, it's not your job to try to change that.
It's your job to put yourself out there as honestly and authentically as you can and to just respect the fact that it's not going to resonate with everyone anyway.
You know.
That's where the piece comes from for me.
I love that. Yeah, what you were describing there for a second, is something we call in the psychological literature communal narcissism, where some people say that they're the best at helping others. You know, I am better than anyone who's ever lived at helping others. Now, you guys are not minimalist minimalist narcissists as far as I can tell. It's not like you're saying we're the best at minimalism. You're saying just simply minimalism matters and it's helpful. Is
that right? You're not minimalist narcissists.
No, not at all. I mean, we would never prescribe minimalism to anyone. It's more it's more about, like, are you someone who feels way down by your stuff? Does your life feel out of control? If so, then let Josh and I and TK talk about how our life was out of control and how we approached it with this thing called minimalism to help create a more simple life. So yeah, we try to come at it from that angle rather than a prescriptive angle.
I think the most consistent position would be to say we're the least of all minimalists.
I will say that that I am very humbles.
You guys are so funny. Well, I liked you guys instantly. I met you at a party. I liked you guys instantly. I felt like your being was exactly what TK was just saying. Your being was authentic, your being was it seemed to be about being like you're just like your energy. I like your energy, so obviously that's why I'm excited to have you on the show.
Yeah. Likewise, I felt the same way about you, and I mention.
Wow, thank you, thank you. I wasn't, but go on, No, I like this idea of psychological richness, you know, and how it doesn't depend on the amount of things you have or how rich your money is. Can you kind of unpack for me a little more what you see the main elements of psychological Richnesskay?
Yeah, well, I see psychological richness as a recognition of the fact that abundance begins from within. I think the greatest tragedy around most people's conception of abundance is that our concept of abundance itself is rooted in scarcity. Because we only see abundance in terms of money, we limit our concept of abundance to physical things. But to have an abundant concept of abundance means that you see abundance in a way that is creative, in a way that
is multifaceted. And so one of the things that is at the heart of the minimalist understanding of psychological richness for us is that a life well lived, a life that is most fully human, is a life that is grounded in creative expression. And that is the opposite of consumerism. Not the opposite of consumption, which is a part of life,
but it's the ism behind it that changes things. Consumerism is about orienting your life around things that are outside the self and seeking completion by going out there obtaining something that you don't already have, becoming something that you
are not yet, and you're always chasing right. But the abundance mindset is when you say, I am already complete, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with me, and I live my life in a way that expresses my already existing state of abundance, my already existing state of self love,
self respect, self care, and so on. And so when you live from that state, it doesn't cause you to antagonize or resist material things, but it establishes you in right relationship to material things so that you can use them to bring joy to other people's lives and to enhance your own fellas.
I think that that's the paradox of minimalism, is I actually get far more value from my material things now. Why because the clutter is out of the way, like the literal clutter, the physical clutter. Right, we often talk about that minimalism from most people starts with the stuff. But we'd be remiss if we said, well, that's it. You just go home, you rent a dumpster, you throw all your stuff in it, and now you will experience perpetual bliss. But of course simplifying your life doesn't really
work like that. You go home today and throw everything away and be utterly miserable because you got rid of all of your pacifiers. It's about that relationship to stuff. And part of our relationship now is not abundance. It's excess masquerading as abundant or pretending if I heat more things on then I am abundant, and of course I get more I'm even more abundant. But clutter is just anything that gets in the way. So one thing that is clutter for you might be essential or value adding
for me, and vice versa. But that is true also outside of the material possession. I think the biggest thing we've learned over the last twelve thirteen years that we've been the minimalists is that the clutter extends way beyond the physical clutter. There's, of course, now digital clututter, which might be one of the biggest problem areas, especially for young folks. You know, my daughter is nine, and I'm terrified of the potential digital clutter that can enter her
life at any moment. But then we have relationship clutter, we have calendar clutter. We're also busy busy busy busy is the worst four letter word in the English language. Or we have community clutter. We feel like I need to be surrounded by more and more and more people in my community, and that actually gets in the way of the meaningful interactions. We have information clutter, education clutter, career or work clutter. There's a lot of clutter.
In our lives. And it's not just about the stuff.
Wow.
You know when we're add on, sorry, when we're add on to psychological richness is I think there's this fundamental, universal human need to be generous. We all know that there are limits to how happy we can be by getting things. But there's no debate about the fact that we can never attain anything that even remotely resembles happiness if we are not in a state of helping, serving and giving, which is why we dream of the day
of retiring. But then the moment we get there, after a little vacation time, a little relaxation time, what's the first thing we do. We go get a job, we go start a project, because we need to contribute some aspect of who we are to the world. And psychological richness is about empowering people to be generous in a way that is not limited to the stuff. But that's something that you can't see if the stuff is in the way, distracting you from the inner space, the inner
richness that gives meaning and value to the stuff. So for us, it's about empowering people to be generous in the way that our nature demands of us.
So what you're saying is, you are enough as you are as long as you give to others.
You are enough as you are even if you don't give to others. But the recognition of your enoughness is what causes that organic response of generosity. If you don't give to others in order to become enough, you recognize that you are enough, and in that recognition you find yourself naturally being generous in ways that are unique to your own creativity.
Cool.
I mean, just just to add to that, I think like when when people in general, when they feel like they have enough, like when they can they can look at their situation and be like, oh, like I have plenty for what I need in my life, that is when people will start to look externally on what they
can give. Now, I don't think you have to be in that spot to look externally, but certainly when your mind is quieter and you feel like you're not you know, stressing out to figure out where the next meal is coming from or how are you going to pay the utility bill? I mean, once you get past that, I think it is easier for people to start looking externally. Although again not saying you necessarily need that, but but certainly it certainly helps.
That's cool, And thanks for rolling with my cheekiness there, tk because one of my pet peeves. One of my pet peeves is this constant like pressure we put on people to give, give, give, give, and we don't. And I created a concept called healthy selfishness which I think people need more of, which as you're allowed to just approve of yourself and not always seek external approval. So I get triggered sometimes when I when people say things like you know, like they give the message you are enough,
but then they like promote giving. They're like promoting it, like as though that's like the way to be a worthy human. But you can be Can you be a worthy human? By Let's say you your life as minimalistic as can be. So let's say what it mean. What does it mean for a minim minimalistic being? So let's say you meditate every day. You you don't really have many things around you in terms of things that you buy.
Let's say you have a small studio apartment, you make enough working you know, at a store, to meet your minimum basic needs, and you're happy and you don't feel compulsion to do anything else with your life. Is that enough of an existence? Is that?
Yeah?
Yeah, well that sounds awesome to me. I mean, we're finding out what is enough for you because the thing you just said and you're happy, and I don't really know what that means. I think a happiness is a relatively nebulous word. And if you were to pull one hundred people on the street ask them what happiness is, I think you'll get probably ninety seven different answers.
Right.
It could be anything from abiding perpetual bliss. Or it could be that spike of dopamine when my Instagram post got one hundred likes. Right, that could be happiness for two different people.
Right.
But if you're talking about some sort of abiding contentment, yes, I think that comes only from identifying what is enough. We never stopped to say what is enough for me? How much is enough money? How much is enough time spent at work? How many square feet are enough? What is enough in terms of my car, my transportation, or my vocation or my education. I have a friend who's working on they're fourth PhD. There's nothing wrong with that, but I asked him, like, how much is enough? And
he's like, I don't know. I just know I want another one.
Right.
And that's not a judgment, because judgment is just a mirror reflecting my own insecurities. But it's understanding that I found what is enough for me with respect to that, and if I decide that it's no longer enough for whatever reason, it's a compelling reason to pursue something else.
That enough point can change over time as well. When I first discovered minimalism, I was in my late twenty to twenty nine or thirty, and you know, I'm forty two now, and what is enough for me now has changed because I have a daughter, and I have a wife, and we own a house together, and I have a car. Like the things will change over time. So it's not about I really wish it was, Scott. I could get down, here's the list of the one hundred items I own,
and now I'm happy. And if I give this list to you, you will also experience the same popetual happiness that I experienced, Because that would be wonderful if I could just make a prescriptive like that. But it's not mechanical. This is this is psychological, right, and and it's emotional. And we tie a lot of emotions to our things and the outcomes and the achievements. And I think the reason we often do that is because we haven't identified
how much is enough. We don't keep asking that question, And so I keep asking that question, does this add value to my life? And if not, I'm willing to let it go. Whether that is a thing or it is a career, it is a project, it is a relationship, business, whatever it might be. My willingness to let go means I'm no longer obligated to be there. If I want to be there, I'm actually there, not out of obligation, but out out of a true devotion or a compulsion
to participate in that. And if I don't want to participate, that's totally fine too.
Yeah, I think that, and I love that that. Every every person should find out what is the minimalistic existence that works for them? Is how I would put it, and I love that. But you know, it's it's tough because things are constantly coming at you in life. You know, you can, for instance, I can decide today like, you know what, I have enough friends, I'm good. I'm good. You know what? I have enough? You know I don't know that. I can go down the list, and then
you can kind of come across as an asshole. It's like things are constantly coming at you, like, Hey, do you want to be my friend? No, I'm good, I've reached I'm good. Hey do you want to do this?
No?
I have my I have enough. It's hard to realistically live in a world where you can kind of just protect what your your your being. You know, your existential Minimalism can be difficult to protect in a world where things are constantly coming at you. Does that make sense?
It does. Our preferences, our bandwidth, our resources, that they're all constantly changing and evolving. And I think, you know, for me, minimalism helps me to not cling so tightly to these these these things that I have in my life because when they do become obsolete or when my preferences change, because my grip is loose and I can let those things go a lot easier and I can kind of go with the flow. Because yeah, I mean you're absolutely right, life changes. Things come at you so fast.
And I think that again, for me, minimalism helps me evolve with that that changing life that happens to all of us.
I think if you're unwilling to say no, I get there, because it's really easy to say yes.
Right now.
You're committing your future self to some future obligation, right without thinking about It's like going into debt, right it sounds great. I think I can afford the car payment. I know, at least I can next month. But it's an eighty three month loan and it's teven hundred dollars a month. I'm committing my future self six and a half years from now to continue to pay for this damn car that is now frustrating me and the repairs.
And maybe I'd like to move in a different direction, but I can't because some version of me in the past said yes, and so saying yes just haphazardly is actually inconsiderate. It's inconsiderate to me and my future self, but it's also inconsidered to other people because now you're
creating these obligatory relationships. I once heard the great philosopher Ben Affleck say that you never want to if someone I asks you to commit to something, don't say yes to it unless you would say yes to it today, because it's easy to put some on my calendar six and a half months from now. But if it's not a yes today, if it's not a hell yeah today, then it's a no for me, And that's okay.
No is a complete sinse yeah.
In economics, you have this concept called creative destruction, which the core of the idea is that anytime you introduce innovation, you disrupt existing industries and create a lot of discomfort, and I think that's true at the micro level in our own individual lives. Anytime we take a step towards progress, anytime we say yes to what's healthy, yes to what's good for us, then that's no to someone else's expectations
of you. You might be the hero of your own story, but you might be a role player in someone else's story. And the moment you say I am going to take ownership of my story by writing this particular subplot or whatever it may be, then you're changing who you are
in someone else's story, and that makes them uncomfortable. And so, whether you describe yourself as a minimalist or anything else, anytime you start saying yes to yourself, you're going to experience that reality shit test where the universe gives you a chance to confirm that yes, you sure you want this, kind of like when you try to delete a file your computer's like, hey, you sure you want to do this? The universe is going to say, hey, you sure you
want to do this? Because I'm going to like you a little bit less. There are a few areas of your life that are going to get a little bit harder in the short term. You sure you want to do this, and when you say yes, you confirm that yes, and you make that a habit. The people in your life begin to respect you and it becomes a little bit easier to deal with that, but it does take practice.
Yeah, I love that TK, and I just know as a common thread among a lot of what you all are saying, which is there's a very mindful vibe I'm getting from all of you. Like there's a sort of like take that extra pause and like like are you sure you want to do this? You know? And so how much does mindfulness play a role in your lives?
I was just talking to a friend downstairs here. He is an architect and in the same building we're in. We're not actually in outer space. I was just kidding about that earlier.
Oh, I believe you.
Centerview's over.
I thought that was really cool.
But I was talking to this friend downstairs and he was working on a creative project and the person got really upset with him, and then he escalated it immediately, and then you know they're essentially getting into a fight together, right, And the question I always ask myself is like, well, i'd be happy about my response a day from now. A week from now, a month from now, a year from now. If the answer is no, well what is it? Then it's that it's because I'm reacting out of emotion.
But our emotions, as real as they feel, they aren't real. They are some sort of respect to some past trauma that I have, some past indiscretion, that I had, some expectation that I.
Had that was not met.
And now I'm reacting to the past by escalating my present, which is actually going to harm this relationship in the future. And so quite often I will just pause and say, would I be happy with this a day from now? And if the answer is no, or I'm not sure, if it's anything but a hell yeah, then it's a hey, it's probably better to be be quiet. Here a friend of mine, Nate Green, he said he's a real quiet, contemplative guy, and he said, I speak only when it
adds more value than silent. Wow, And that is a hard truth try to live up to. But man, it's I think it's probably something worth striving for.
Oh.
I think it was Bertrand and Russell who said most of humanity's problems boiled down to people's inability to sit in a room alone with themselves. For me, the way I look at mindfulness is kind of like, imagine going to the ocean on a really windy day and you look at the water and the wind is beating against the waves, and you just see the surface of the ocean.
But then you come back on a different day where it's really calm and really quiet, and you look at that same ocean and you can see through the ocean and you can see that it's teeming with life, all sorts of things underneath. And I think that's a great metaphor for the soul. You know, when the mind is clouded with thoughts and anxieties and distractions and we're so focused on that to do list and we're just in hustle mode, there is a richness, an interior depth that
you don't really get to pierce. But when you can quiet down, you can calm down, and you can still yourself, you can see into your soul and there's so much substance there. And most of the answers to the questions that we wrestle with, a lot of the solutions that we feel like they elude us, a lot of that is right there within. And so it's it's a cliche that you have to slow down to go faster, but it's true. It's only a cliche because we have Instagram
and everybody puts the quotes out there every day. But are you doing it?
That's the key if you take the time to do it.
Man, there's so much peace and power to be found and just taking that time to go within And that's what myfulness is to me. And I try to make a habit of taking a walk or having some quiet time every day for that.
I mean, that's really insightful. I feel like a lot of people are scared to see into their soul and so they distract themselves with things. Do you guys feel that a lot of people buy stuff to fill a hole in their soul? Because I know I do. I need your help. I have not actually owned a bed in ten years. I do all the trial periods and then I return it this day before the trial period's over, because I'm like, I bet I can find a better
bed now. My friend Dan said the other day, sometimes a bed is not just a bed, Scott, maybe there's something deeper going on there. So anyway, I need your help. Do you think that is true though, that sometimes people buy things because they're avoiding maybe singing into their soul in some way might be too dramatic.
Yeah, yeah, I mean I can only speak for my own experience, but I mean there was a point in my life where I didn't know what was important, but one thing was clear. I had this gaping void in my life. So back in my corporate days, I tried to fill that void the same way many people do with stuff, lots of stuff. I was filling the void with as many consumer purchases as possible. You know, I bought TVs Electronics, a new car every couple of years.
I had a you know, a big two thousand square foot condo with two living rooms, which I have no idea why a single guy would ever need two living rooms. I had two of them, and it was never enough. I thought at the time that eventually that void would get smaller and smaller, and I thought happiness just had to be somewhere around the corner. But the stuff didn't fill the void, it just widened it. And uh yeah, it got to a point where I really had to
start questioning what that void was. I'll tell you the one thing that I've really come to appreciate about the void is that I don't. For me, it never goes away, and that's okay because it does become a little bit smaller in the sense of the less that I desire, the smaller the void will get. But there's there's a beauty in like making friends with that void because you do get an opportunity to really, I get an opportunity to look at who I am as a person and
why do I have that void? And it goes back to so many things. I mean, it's it goes back to different traumas in my life. It goes back to being raised in a very religious household. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why I think I have that void. And instead of me trying to ignore it, trying to come up with some magical formula to just get rid of it, it's about recognizing it and being able to sit with it and make space for it without letting it ruin my life.
I would just open that by saying that we often are told that there's a void, mostly by marketers or advertisers that want to sell us stuff, and so in order to sell us stuff, they have to create a solution to a problem that might not actually exist In fact, we use pejorative words like void. Right, But when Ryan and I lived in Montana, you don't go to Montana, the Glacier National Park and say, wow.
Look at this void.
We really need to fill this with some skyscraper, some condos, some chain restaurants.
Let's fill the void, right.
I mean someone might say that, some sort of developer might say that, look at this void. But no, you say, wow, look at the open space here. Isn't this peaceful? Isn't this calm? Isn't this complete? It's not incomplete because of the lack of condos, just like you aren't incomplete because of a lack of the perfect mattress.
Right.
By the way, the word complete is a fascinating one. We had what was her name, Katherine Schaffler on the podcast on the Minimalist podcast, and she wrote a book about perfectionism. And I used to have a different view of perfect. I used to think that it was impossibly perfect because perfect flawless. Well, no, that's not what perfect means. If you look at the Latin root, it's just perfect. Sayre so per and for Sarah's completely done. And so you go to Montana and you see Glacier National Park.
It's already completely done. In fact, adding condos to Glacier National Park would incomplete it. And the same is true with us, right if I heap more things onto me. I'm not against material possessions. We all need some stuff. But if I just need more and more and more and more, that's not how you complete yourself.
That's how you incomplete your Wow.
You guys, you guys. Oh my gosh, I'm so impressed with you guys. So you're saying a lot of things that really cut to the core of the truth of human existence. There's you know, the givens of existence that existential psychologists talk about, and I always love starting from that point of view, you know, and this whole idea that the void never goes away. That's a bold thing to say, Ryan, That is a I just want to like double click for a second. Thank you for saying that.
First of all, it has some rawness, because you often get a lot of like bs in the spiritual slash self help world where it's like, you know, like sort of like you are enough and you will feel complete if all you do is this ten minute meditation And I don't know, I feel like you guys are doing some real talk here. You know, there's like, yeah, no, like part of the human condition is never feeling complete in a way, you know, but there are so many things we can do to feel less broken.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it is unfortunate in the sense of we are offering all these fixes in these solutions for these every day I want to say problems, but they're not even problems. It's these everyday discomforts. And you know, just speaking to the void specifically, it's like, instead of offering this magic solution to make it go away and to make you feel complete, to me, it's empowering to see it as something that I can use to understand myself better. And as Josh said, it doesn't have to
be a negative thing. I mean that that void and you kind of alluded to it as well, it keeps us driven, It keeps us inspired in a certain way. Like you know, after we did our first documentary, we didn't say, oh, well that's it. We did it. We finally we got on Netflix and life is complete now. No, it was like, wow, that was a lot of fun. We could probably create some other things that could be just as meaningful or just as impactful. What else can
we do. And it is that incompleteness, so to speak, that inspired us to continue to you know, to go on and make our second documentary. It's why, you know. So that's why Josh's friend is getting multiple PhDs is because they want to learn, They want to grow and that void. Instead of looking at it as a how can I get to the end, it's more about how can you know? I look at it as how can I leverage it to become a better version of myself?
Oh wow, I love that.
Trying to avoid the void is kind of like trying to make music without silence. Music is a combination of silence and sound.
Right.
Sound is easier to notice because you can hear it, but the silence is what makes the sound possible. And there's an analogous relationship between space and matter. It's like, we tend to treat space as like this invisible container that houses things and spaces in the background and matter stuff things that's the real star of the show, and so anything that is space like it's like, oh, that's just secondary, that doesn't really matter. The stuff of life
is the stuff. But if we see space as the source of vitality, the source of play, the source of creativity. We stop running from it, and we are willing to confront it. We're willing to engage it, even if there's something scary there, because even the scary stuff offers us wisdom that would not be otherwise possible. C. S. Lewis in the Space Trilogy describes his character, for instance, who has this leechlike creature that's attached to him and it creates a lot of pain and he complains about it
all the time. Then he encounters this being who says, I can destroy that for you, and he's like, oh no, no, no, no no, it'll hurt me and it'll hurt the being, and so he just settles for a life of medicating the pain. And then at one point this being finally talks him into just letting him destroy it for him, and he does, and then that leech like creature turns into this great, beautiful, dragon like creature upon which he rides to his own freedom. And so the void is
like that. We run from it, we treat it like it's scary when we look at it as the background, but when we recognize it to be the source of life itself, we confront it, We engage it. And even if there are monsters, there by acknowledging those monsters and asking them, what are you here to teach me, we transform them into the angels and allies that show us the way to be uniquely us show us the way
to be free. And we recognize that we are enough, not because we know everything and can do everything, but we are enough even in our own flaws, even in our own failings, because that's part of what it means to be enough.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just want to say too, like, we're not advocating for people to live empty lives, right, Like, we're not advocating for people to to take that feeling of the void and amplify this. It's more about just what TK was saying about not running from it. I mean any type of emptiness or void or negative feeling that we have. I mean, this is a symptom of something that we probably should look at rather than try and cover up.
Yeah. And I don't want to moralize the void either. I think that's what we often do. Void must be bad, thereforelfilling the void must be good. Discomfort bad, comfort good. But of course we can all think of a dozen scenarios in which comfort is stifling, and comfort is causing disease and disfunction in our lives. And of course discomfort is causing growth, or causing pleasure or causing ecstasy.
Right, And there are.
These things that we well, we're in a society that tends to moralize essentially everything.
Right, this is good, therefore that is bad.
And there's this binary there. You're talking about something being scary. Earlier scary must be bad, and therefore what not scary is good? Well, then why do any of us go watch a horror film?
Right?
Because we want to be scared within certain limits. Right, And so I think as soon as we start moralizing any one thing, and it's same with with clutter even, right, we're not moralizing clutter or we don't do advertisements on our podcast. One of our slogans is advertisements suck. We just don't like that. But it's not a moralizing stance. The same way that if I, like, step in a puke outside of our studio here, I'm not gonna think it's immoral. I'm just gonna be kind of grossed out
by it, the same way I'm grossed out by advertisements. Right, And so it's not a moralizing stance. It's just understanding our preferences and being okay with those preferences without having to justify them to anyone else.
You don't need anybody else to be wrong in order to do us best for you, That's right.
Yeah, I just listen to you guys all day. I could just listen to you guys. Pa Josha, you just talked about something there that I saw a video of yours talking about Instagram ads. You said you don't like ads, but I saw something you said about Instagram ads. Can you help me with that too? Because I'm a sucker. Man, I'm a saucy They're like, oh new cooling blanket.
Click, hey, just to make me feel better. We're all suckers to a certain degree.
Well, thanks for making me feel a little better.
Yeah, no worries. I'm kingsucker.
I have like fifty things, you know, from Instagram ads that I like regret. Two weeks later, I look around my room, I'm like, what the hell have I done?
Yeah, that videos on YouTube says never buy anything from an Instagram ad. But it was as I said in the video, It's not a message to anyone else. I'm not prescribing that it was a reminder for me. If I ever am suckered into wanting to buy anything again, I need to go back and watch that video to
remind myself. Don't buy anything from an Instagram ad. And the reason that I say that is there are statisticians and demographers who are some of the brightest minds in the world who are paid six seven figures a year to aggregate your eyeballs onto their products in a way that is pleasing and dopamine enhancing in the moment, and they well, it's manipulative, right, And if you want to unlove someone, what do you do? You manipulate them to your point of view, or if you're a marketer, you
manipulate them to buy your product or service. And that's the biggest problem I have. I have several problems with advertising. That's one of the biggest ones is they're so manipulative. Also, I think the entire infrastructure of the Internet happens to now be set up. We've come to expect everything for free, and therefore we're not willing to pay for things. Well, if I'm not paying for I am now the product that they are now selling to Instagram. I'm part of
the demographics. If you want to market to this particular group of people, I'm now included that they're going to market to me.
Right.
And of course, anytime I see another black shirt, like, I need another black T shirt, right, anytime I see another black T shirt on Instagram, Oh maybe this one's better than all of the ones that I like.
Just fine? Yeah, well, what is that?
It's about feeling incomplete, and I didn't feel incomplete before I saw the ads, So what happens? The market does a really slick job. I don't know if you ever read Infinite Jests, but one of my favorite things about the book is every year in Infinite Jest, they've replaced the chronological years, like twenty eighteen is no longer twenty eighteen.
It's the year of the depend adult undergarment. And so it's this dystopian future in which every year is sponsored, and so we're no longer and by the way, we're already doing that now.
Right.
We don't say at the Lakers Arena, we say Thecrypto dot com Arena, right, And we do that because it is sponsored. And I don't think it's morally wrong for people to advertise, but I do think it's manipult relative and yeah, I just have a problem with manipulation, with coercion, even with convincing.
And we have different views on that, by the way, which is what makes a lot of our discussions fun. Yeah that's not me saying I love manipulation, but that's what I sound like.
Can we go on?
Go on? Wait, tell me more of your view, Tell me more of your view.
So I'm not grossed out by advertisements in the way that Josh is. I love commercials. I think ads are in so many ways a beautiful, wonderful, creative expression of how we market things and so on. And I often play Angel's advocate when we do our advertising Sucks segment on the show. Where we agree is when he talks about ads on this show, he's talking about it from the vantage point of maintaining control over your own narrative,
over your own voice. And one of the reasons so many people today are scared to laugh at what they genuinely think is funny. They're afraid to say what they really believe. And why people are neutralizing their personalities in order to be as presidential aka boring as possible is because they're afraid that Tropicana or a Nike is going to say, oh, no, we can't stand by that joke, or sorry you said the word poop, and we just don't want poop and tropic canna next to each other.
And so people are losing their authenticity in this quest to add chase, and so advertise or capture is controlling content and that's really at the heart of what people call cancel culture. I believe, and Josh articulates is better than me, and so I'm down with the fact that we don't do advertising on our show because that means we truly get to say what we think, what we feel, and what we believe, and that's freedom. I don't think
people dream of having ads for the most part. They dream of having the freedom to say what they really want to say, and they try to negotiate having that as much as possible. So that's what we agree. But we talk all the time on the show about how how we have like nuanced differences with advertising and so on.
Well, I love my Bombbass socks. By the way, Have I mentioned that I'm sponsored by bombass socks? I just I love them, I really do.
I was disagreeing with you the comfort my wife I have some that I steal all the time and wear.
It's not like the things I advertise like I actually don't like I actually passed the other day on something. But no, I hear you, I hear you, And I can have joy for things right, like You're not like, I don't have to feel guilty that I have this eighty five inch TV that I've been saving up years to buy and I love it, like and it gives me joy, Like I don't need to feel like guilty for having joy for some things right.
Actually have a meaning to talk to you about that.
Oh darn it, I really feel guilty.
I already feel guilty.
Yes, no, we would never make anyone feel guilty for the things that they owned. I mean minimalism Again, it's just something that might help you out, or might might be a tool that you could use in your life if you are experiencing a lot of discontent, if you're experiencing chaos in the home and your life with your
physical possessions, or maybe it is mentally. But yeah, certainly, if someone came to me and was like, I love my life, I'm doing great, and then I see an eighty five inch TV, I wouldn't be like, well, you shouldn't be doing that great. I mean, that's something that that's something we would never do to anyone.
Yeah, we're not deprivationists, right, and we're certainly not asthetics. I do think there is some benefit in temporary deprivation. Ryan, early on we first started, before we started the Minimalist. In fact, he came to me one day he said,
why the hell are you so happy? And I explained that I've spent the last eight months simplify my life getting rid of the excess flutter pairing that over the course of about eight months, I got rid of ninety percent of my material possessions, which sounds really radical at first.
And so you realize that according to the La Times, the average American home three hundred thousand items in it, and so get rid of ninety percent of stuff still means you have thousands of items that you own, right, And so I did get rid of a lot of things, a lot of excess, a lot of junk, a lot of things that were in the way. I was questioning what adds value to my life? And it started with that question, how might your life be better with less?
And that question led to another question, was does this add value to my life, and I started doing that until it became habitual, like literally going to all of my possessions. Does this add value to my life? Does this add value to my life? Does this add value
to my life? And then I started letting go one thing at a time, and it became this snowball effect, And eventually I was just letting go of things habitually because I realized most of the things I brought into my life to bring me happy weren't adding any value to my life at all. In fact, they were extracting value. Because we don't think about the true cost of a thing. The cost of the thing goes well beyond the price tag.
If you buy a thing, you still have to store the thing, and clean the thing, and worry about the thing, and paint the thing and change the bad reason the thing, or replace the oil in the thing, and then of course protect the thing. And if you break it, you repair the thing. And if you lose it, you have to replace the thing. And if you don't have enough room for it, you have to get a storage locker
to store the thing. There are six times a number of storage lockers compared to the number of Starbucks in the United States, and there are a lot of Starbucks here, right. That's a relatively unique problem to America specifically, But consumerism is worldwide now, and so when we are embracing minimalism, we're thinking about the things that get in the way. We're often talking about value ultimately. So if you get value from your eighty five inch TV, awesome, But it's not about that thing is.
Bringing you joy. The joy is already in you.
It enhances your experience of life, and that is wonderful. And if it ceases to enhance your experience of life, then it's also wonderful to let it go. I'll tell you this though, if you went and bought thirty of those eighty five inch TVs, you're not going to get thirty times joy from it. In fact, you might end up getting much less joy because those damn things are just gonna get in the way.
I love that. No, I've been followed. Look, I've been following your your whole protocol. Day one one thing, day two, two things, Day thirty you throw out thirty things. I've been doing it. I'm on day like ten of this, and in fact, it has enabled me to get this TV because I've been selling lots of things in my apartment that I don't need, and I've been using that money to actually get the one thing I do want. So maybe maybe you are proud of me.
Yeah.
No, of course we're proud of you. But no, I mean it's not amazing like you, when you let go of the excess, you make room for the things that truly add value. We were doing a live stream, this was years ago when we were living in Montana, and someone had mentioned something in the comments. They're like, you, guys, don't seem like you've gotten rid of anything that's in important, like trying to call us out on not being minimalists
because we hadn't, you know, deprived ourselves. But when we read that comment, it was like, well, of course we didn't get rid of anything that was important. In fact, the things that we have in our lives are the most important things, and we were able to discover those from letting go of the excess.
And that's the power of keeping that word game in the game.
Right.
I love how you said you're playing the minimalist game because it's not the minimalist rule, it's not the minimalist religion, it's not the minimalist doctrine or the minimalist law. It's a game, and I like what James P. Carr says here that the first rule of play is he who must play cannot play. The moment you take it upon yourself as an external obligation, as a moral duty to fulfill, you lose that sense of freedom that comes from playing
the game. So, you know, some people ask, well, what if I don't want to play the game, or what if I don't have that? What if I don't enjoy the game? What if it gets really stressful? Like what if you don't like baseball? What if you don't like basst gooball?
Same as a lot of this perspective seems to align with Marie Kondo's I'm sure to get this a lot right, Like what do you think of Mariecondo? What do you what do you think of? You know, the similarities differences between your approach and her approach. And also I read an article the other day with the headline Mariecondo gives up tidying up. She's like, you know what's Maricondo is focusing on what's important and that means letting the tidying slide. So have you been following that news.
Oh yeah, We actually did a segment on our podcast about that because we read the article. And here's what I'll say. I think professional organizers understand this better than anyone. We just had a professional organizer on a podcast, Kristin Ziegler from Minimum.
She is awesome. Professional organizers get this.
Ryan and I to give a keynote at the NAPO conference, the National Association of Professional Organizers. Professional organizers get this one concept, and it's this, if you want to organize your stuff, the best way to organize it is to get rid of most of it, because otherwise if you're just tidying up all the time. And by the way, Marie Condo gets this as well. You can check out her first book. It's called The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. But then if you get rid of the excess,
what happens. You can tidy the stuff up without needing to have one hundred different bins and boxes and an ordinal system of alphabetized cases.
Well, why is that?
Because you got rid of the excess, and then it's much easier to organize. And so the problem is we often conflate organizing with letting go but it's the opposite. Organizing is just well planned hoarding. And by the way, I don't mean hoarding pejoratively. We are all what the
vast majority of us our orders on some level. If you go through the five stages of hoarding, Ryan and I when we first started, we stage two or stage three hoarders, the stage five or what you should see on like the TV show Hoarders, where you can barely walk through the house, or exits are blocked, or there are dead cats and the freezer, and it's easy for us to just sort of point and sneer and say, ah, at least I'm not living like that, right, Well, yeah,
do you think that happened? Clearly, that didn't happen overnight. That's a lifetime of accumulation, and nothing wrong with accumulation, but we don't do so intentionally. We keep accumulating, we reach some level of hoarding. You know what level one hoarding is light clutter in two or more rooms. That seems to describe most places. And so that's not a judgment.
It's just understanding that we all have things that no longer serve us, and our willingness to let go or unwillingness to let go will dictate where we're going from here and how are way down we are on that journey.
Yeah, when I look at Marie Condo, first off, it's good to know that she is a human being and that she's not perfect. And the fact that she's like owning up to falling back on this whole idea of tidying up. I mean, to me, that's that's an empowering story because really, when it comes to minimalism and any technique that different minimalists will give, it's not a destination. It is a constant process. And I think Marie Condo like totally shows that. It's like, hey, she has this
version of tidying up that that works for her. But as soon as you slack off a little bit and don't keep up with that process, and things become quickly cluttered, and I bet you have five years from now, she
will be decluttered then. But to me, it's it's something that I think it's a good example for all to show that, like, hey, even Marie Kondo, the the you know, the most famous best selling minimalist, when it comes to getting rid of your stuff, even she has has her obstacles and uh, yeah again, I think that that's I think it's an empowering story.
I think Ryan and I differ a little bit on this. I just frankly think tighty and it basically doesn't work. And what I mean by that is techniques generally don't work because we don't understand the why behind what we're doing. You'll never see us talk about the sixty seven ways to declutter your closet.
Right.
I can give it to you, or I can help you. I can actually come to your house and tidy up your closet, and a month from now it'll be recluttered, right or a year from now, or whatever it might be. And the reason I say that tidying up or maybe just organizing is probably a better way to put that organizing doesn't work very well is because as soon as something changes, we become disorganized. I think it's a difference
with minimalism. Minimalism is about subtracting and figuring out how your life would be better with less, how it might be more with less, more room, more freedom, more creativity, improved relationships, freed up finances, et cetera, more piece, more contentment, as opposed to yeah, it's nice, to have a declutter closet. But if you don't know why you're decluttering that calls it, then well you're just not going to You're not going to keep it up.
Yeah, you're so right.
Can agree with Josh Moore because people always ask like, where do we start with minimalism, And the place to start is to ask the question, how might my life be better with less? And that's really what Josh is talking about. It's about getting clear on the why, because the how to kind of will present itself and there are a million different how to's. But yeah, just as Josh said, if you don't know why you're doing it, it's very easy for it's all come crashing back down.
I mean, Josh and I literally wrote wrote a rule book. It's called sixteen Rules for Living with Less. You can go over to the minimalists dot com and it'swer right there. It's a free ebook. And really, you know, those rules are boundaries. It's not something that Josh and I are saying, Hey, if you want to be a minimalist, here's the sixteen things you have to do. It's really about these different boundaries that we set up in our life and when
people look at those. It makes sense for a lot of people, but some people look at those are like, you know what, these are a little too straight for me, which is okay. You can take any of our rules, any of our boundaries, and you can adjust them for taste. But certainly, to Josh's point, if you don't know why you're putting these boundaries in place, then it's it's probably not going to have a long term lasting effect on your life.
You guys are so right. It's aligns with a cognitive science perspective as well, because you know, like I have fifty of every kind of tie, and I still only use one tie out of all of them regularly. I still don't use the other forty nine even with them tidied.
And it would be so much better from a cognitive science perspective for me to just like the path of least resistance, if there's just one there, I'd be like, that's the one I use, you know, like, as opposed to cluttering my way to find it out of the others you know I have. I get tempted by the others, but I don't really like them.
So anyway, one of the rules that in that rule book is called the spontaneous combustion rule. And it's really just a thought experiment if it's anything, and it's basical. If you take any item, like one of those ties in your clauset and you pull it out, or say you take all forty nine of the ones you don't wear, and you ask this question, if this spontaneously combusted, or if all forty nine of these spontaneously combusted, what I
feel A relieved or B when I replace them? And if the answer is A, it's probably a sign that I want to let go. But if I replace them, then by all means, why would I Why would I get rid of them?
I get it. I get exactly what you guys are doing. So let's just recap here and then this beautiful discussion. This is some things I got out of today. Get rid of everything that is sucking your soul, not not if I'm if this is right, that's something like that.
Give yourself permission to get rid of everything that's sucking your soul, because get rid of everything sounds like a commandm it's something that you ought to do, and that takes the playfulness out of it. But give yourself permission to love that.
Only keep things that bring you value, asking yourself question does add value in my life? And asking the question most importantly, what is truly important in my life? And your minimalist approach can actually help you discover that more. Would you say that's great? Yeah?
Absolutely. The one thing I'll say is when it comes to adding value, that is looking at something and really asking does this serve a purpose or does it bring me joy? That's to us what adding value means. Would you add anything else to that?
Yeah?
I mean, ultimately, when you're talking about what those important things are, they're rarely the thing are sound biteish answer for what is minimalism is minimalism is the thing that gets us past the thing which often aren't things at all. Right, and we don't realize that. We often think that the things that we buy are not just going to complete us,
but they're going to make us happy. And we confuse that cocaine like high that we get at the checkout line, or we bring it home or we unboxed it, right, the whole genre of videos now unboxing videos, and we conflate that with contentment, with happiness, with peace of mind, and uh, of course we don't get any of those things from those things.
Exactly, and and I want to double I want to circle back to something TK was talking about earlier to add another principle, and that's that I think we underestimate the value of giving to others. We see this in the clinical psychology world, people who are severely you know, depressed and are constantly talking about themselves. As a therapist, you know, I would say, well, have you tried not
thinking about yourself so much? Have you tried maybe actually, like stop ruminating so much about your own woes and giving to others. And you often find when people do give to others, they feel more lightness of being. So I really think we underestimate that value of giving to others.
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing about joy. Joy makes room for all the other emotions as well. You can experience joy and still have some sort of grief, you know, the grief of moving on. Right, you're graduating. You have a kid who's graduating. My daughter's getting ready to graduate fourth grade right now, right, and so she's going to move on from the fourth grade, and there's a little grief in that, but there's also a great joy in
moving on. There'd be far more grief if she had to stay there perpetually, right, But grief makes room for all of these other emotions. But the other thing about joy that's really fascinating is it doesn't even have to be your joy. You can experience joy when other people experience joy as well. And that's one of the side benefits, the byproducts of contributing beyond yourself in a meaningful way.
Well, Joshua, Ryan and TK, unless did anyone want to add anything last minute? That's good.
Just thank you for this time.
Oh my gosh, thank you guys. I just was a Joshua Ryan, TK you bring me cholly you guys.
I'm working on an R and B album right now, so whenever you're ready, I got the studio for us.
I'm ready. Seriously, you I can just fill your joyful energy and it really is contagious. So thank you so much for being on the Psychology Podcast. I know this will be a really valuable episode for people.
Love you, Scott. Thanks, thank you so much.
Take care, Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thus Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page, The Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.