Becoming a Minimalist ｜ Joshua Becker
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Summary
Joshua Becker makes the case for why more is less. He argues that having less stuff in our life can truly unlock the key to a more meaningful and purpose-driven life. He talks about the benefits of owning less, why we have the desire to own more than we ll ever need or even use, the burden extra possessions place on our lives, and how you too can become a minimalist.
Transcript
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Every time you turn around, you're bombarded with a thousand ads, a million choices,
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and an endless supply of options and quote-unquote opportunities.
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It's becoming increasingly difficult to manage the landscape of the ever-growing decisions that
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need to be made. Add to that our desire to be seen and perceived a certain way by people
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we may not even know or like, and it's easy to see why this disease of wanting more is becoming a
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real problem. My guest today, Joshua Becker, makes the case for why more is less. He argues,
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and I agree, that having less stuff in our life can truly unlock the key to a more meaningful
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and purpose-driven life. We talk about the benefits of owning less, why we have the desire to own more
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than we'll ever need or even use, the burden extra possessions place on our lives, and how you too
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can become a minimalist. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears
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and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every
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time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life.
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This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and
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done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler,
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and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and this movement, The Order of Man. Guys, this is a
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movement of helping men become better men. And I've had a lot of people ask what that even means.
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I have to leave that for you to decide. It's up to each man to decide how he's going to show up for
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his business, his family, his community, every area and every facet of life that he shows up in.
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But I will say that we have the framework, the foundation, the foundational elements,
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if you will, of what it means to be a man. And that is of a protector, a provider, and a presider.
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Now, how each man fulfills and steps into those roles and into that calling is different. But I
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believe that is at the core, the foundational principle of what it means to be a man and
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everything that we're doing here in this podcast and the blog and the movement and the YouTube
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channel and the social media profiles and everywhere that you can find us is all geared towards helping
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men become better protectors, providers, and presiders. All of this in a society that I think
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dismisses and shuns and looks down upon manliness and masculinity. And we are attempting to and doing
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successfully restoring and reclaiming what it means to be a man. So whether you're new here
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or you've been listening for three years, I want to welcome you. I want to welcome you to this show.
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This could not be possible without you. And I am glad that you are here. We've got a good show lined
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up and it's along the same lines of the show last week, but I thought this would be a good trend.
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This would be a good theme. And it is that of becoming a minimalist and getting rid of the stuff
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and the clutter and the chaos and the confusion that comes with having more than we'll ever need
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or use. Like I had mentioned in the show intro. So before I get to that, I do want to make one quick
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announcement. I announced this on our Friday field notes last week on Friday, and that is the
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immersion camp that's going to be put on by origin main. Now this is in September. It's a week long
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or a three or four day event. If you want to choose that, I think there's a couple of different
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options, a Brazilian jujitsu training class course, immersion camp, whatever you want to call it.
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I'm going to be out there for the entire week. I've got another half dozen, probably a dozen by the
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time all is said and done members of order of man who are going to be there. Pete Roberts,
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Brian, the founders of origin are going to be there. Jocko with his whole crew,
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Leif and JP Donnell with echelon front echo Charles as well. They're all going to be there.
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So guys, if you can make it, I'd love to have you there. And also the beauty of this is that
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if you come with us, you are going to get an order of man rash guard. I'm having some custom
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rash guards made for the event itself. And then of course you can take that home.
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We don't want that back and join us. All right. So that is August 26th through September 2nd of this
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year. If you are interested, you can head to origin, main.com, get registered, get signed up,
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leave me a message. Let me know you did. And we'll, uh, we'll go from there guys. I don't have
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a whole lot of announcements outside of that because I want to get right into the show today,
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because as I said earlier, it is important. And I want to introduce you to my guest.
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His name is Joshua Becker. He is the founder of becoming minimalist and the bestselling author of
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the more of less. And in the spirit of what we're going to be talking about today,
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I'm going to keep it very, very short. We were introduced by a mutual friend who had taken much
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of what Joshua has been teaching and he incorporated into his own life. I did some initial research and
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immediately recognized a need to adopt the practice of what he terms rational minimalism
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into my life. I've already begun implementing some of his teachings. And I can honestly say that I have
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been able to free up more mental and emotional and physical capacity for the more important pursuits
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in my life. I know you will as well. So take some notes if you have to, if you have to come back
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and catch a replay and take some notes then, because you're working out or doing yard work or
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whatever it may be, do that. But guys take this stuff to heart, implement this in your life. And I
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know, I know you'll see big improvements. Joshua, what's going on, man. Thanks for joining me on the
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show today. Hey, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me looking forward to this. Yeah. Oh, me too,
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man. This is such a critical topic. I think there's this society in which we live is this
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level of just overconsumption. God, it must've been about six months or so ago. I had a very
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similar thought to what you ran across, which is, do we really need all this stuff? I'm curious
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why you found living the minimalist life to be so valuable for yourself.
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Man, I found minimalism 10 years ago. And 10 years ago, I decided that me and my family,
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we would purposefully own less stuff. And I got to tell you, honestly, Ryan, over 10 years,
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I cannot think of a single negative effect of that decision. Only positive things that have
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happened in my life and positive benefits, positive effects of the change in my life.
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Oh man. It's very funny when I, whenever I speak on this, I'll always ask the room full
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of people, turn to your neighbor and answer this question. If I were to own less stuff,
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in what practical ways would my life improve? And it's fascinating because I have never asked that
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question to a quiet room. Like no one struggles answering that question. They turn to their neighbor
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and they start talking right away. Well, we'd have more time available. We'd have more energy.
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We'd have more money. We'd have less stress. We'd be living a better life for the environment. We'd be
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a better example for our kids. We'd experience more gratitude and have opportunity for generosity.
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It's just very interesting how all of these like very practical, positive benefits of owning less.
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And most of us never take the time to just sit down and think about them until someone asks us to.
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Yeah. That's a good point. I know when you asked that question, the knee jerk reaction for me was
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more focus, you know, time to focus on the things that are actually important versus the things that
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other people tell me are important or I perceive to be important. But when you drill down into it,
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Yeah. Just fewer distractions. I mean, in the very short term, like fewer physical possessions around us
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means that our eyes are less distracted. Our minds are less distracted by all the things around us,
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but then you multiply it over a lifestyle where if you've just decided that you can be content
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owning less and that you are happy owning less. And suddenly the focus of the distraction of all
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the things that we spend our lives chasing, right? Like bigger houses and nicer cars and more clothing
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and technology and toys and money, like just remove all of that from your life. And suddenly
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you have what's left, right? Like the things that actually matter, the things that we actually find
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If nobody has a hard time answering the question of why this would improve their lives,
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why is it so hard for people to do? Or is it, they just don't think about it. It might,
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Yeah. I think it's the latter. Certainly we, we live in a culture that tells us the exact opposite
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message. I think last I saw the statistic, it was that we see 5,000 advertisements every single day,
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1 million by the time we reach the age of 21. And they're all telling us at their core that we are
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not as happy as we could be unless we buy whatever they're selling. Our life isn't as happy as it could
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be. It's not as fulfilled. It's not as convenient. It's not as luxurious, right? Like this is the heart
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of every advertisement. And I think what happens is we hear that message so many times and from so
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many places that we subtly begin to believe it without even realizing that we've bought into it.
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We start to believe it. And so if you were to ask anyone, Hey, what's most important in your life?
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Like no one says, what's most important is I just want to own as much junk as possible, right? Like
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no one answers that when you ask them, but their life is actually, is focused on that. And you can
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see, you know, their time and their energy and their money is focused on constantly acquiring more
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and more stuff. And so I think one of the things that makes it so difficult to see or understand is
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that we've, we've bought into a lie very subtly, very subconsciously. And we don't even realize that
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we bought into it until, you know, someone turns on a podcast like this and starts thinking a little
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bit differently about what they've gotten, if it's all been worth it. And this actually reminds me one
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of the things I heard somebody say, and this made so much sense to me, and this kind of woke me up to
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this concept and idea is that we wear busyness, like a badge of honor. You know, if you go ask 10 people
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today, how things are going, it seems like nine out of 10 of those people will say, Oh, it's good.
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It's so busy as if somehow busy is the objective. Like it's the goal that we should all be striving
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to. And I don't think that's the case. I want to be effective. I want to be efficient, but I
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certainly don't want to be busy. Yeah. I think it's a Jeff Schinnenberger in his book, more or less.
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He, uh, he says busy has become the new fine. Uh, you used to ask people how they were doing and
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everyone just say that they're fine, but now you ask how anyone's doing and they say that they're busy.
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I think rather than being busy, I think the goal should be focused, right? Like even what you said,
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like we do want to live the best life that we can, and we do want to accomplish the most important
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things with our life. And we do have a desire to be significant and make an impact. The problem is
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we, we just get busy with so much stuff that doesn't matter as opposed to staying focused on
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the very few things that actually do. I think that's a good distinction because it is easy to
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say, let's just take work for example, and think that the next course that you buy or the next
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conference that you attend or the next product that you own or next technology that you, that you're able
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to harness that somehow that will improve your productivity. And there's probably a reason we
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believe that because there is truth to it, but also what expense does that come at? And I think
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we've got to understand that there's an expense to everything. Sometimes that expense is seen
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because we're paying for it. And other times it's the closing off of other opportunities that may
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present themselves because we're so consumed with other things that don't really play into the grand
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scheme of things. Yeah. And even, you know, stripping it down to what I write, you know, a lot about
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physical possessions. We've got this idea that, that if I get this, you know, if I acquire this,
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it's going to improve my life. Um, and we don't like, we count maybe the, the financial cost of
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what it is. And we look at our bank account and there's enough in there or there's enough on the
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credit card limit yet to buy this. And it becomes, it becomes the only filter, you know, do I have the
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money to, to buy this? Meanwhile, we're stockpiling more and a bigger and greater burden, um, that we
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have to carry on our, our shoulders that we carry every day. I've, I've begun to say that I, I don't
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think anybody realizes the burden that physical possessions have become on our lives until we take
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the step to remove them. And as we do, we, we suddenly find up that we were freed up and we,
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we do have time and we do have energy and we do have money to do those things that are most important.
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We just unfortunately let them get crowded out.
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Do you find that a lot of people do this to impress others? I'll be honest. There's times
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in my life where I have done that, whether I bought some article of clothing, I don't need
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or a new firearm or, you know, a vehicle that you're driving around or the bigger house that
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you probably don't really need and won't really use. Is that part of the reason that people do this?
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Oh, I think there's a whole bunch of reasons that people do it. Um, we, um, we went to our house,
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uh, we lived in Vermont at the time. We, we ended up going as me and my wife, we had two kids. My
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son was five. My daughter was two at the time. And, uh, we started going through our house. It took
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maybe, I don't know, eight or nine months. We got rid of about 60, 70% of our things, things that we
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just didn't need things. I've never missed. I always tell the story. I took a van load of stuff to
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goodwill and it felt great. I took a second van load of stuff to goodwill and it felt great.
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By about the third or fourth van load of things that I was taking to goodwill,
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like it got more and more difficult internally because at some point on my third drive to goodwill,
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I looked around at the boxes of stuff in the back and asked myself, why in the world did I have three
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van loads of things in my house that I didn't need? Like why, why do we buy stuff that we don't need?
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I mean, what's the, what's the motivation? Why, why would we run around buying a bunch of stuff
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that we don't need to have to live our lives? And oftentimes I don't think we always like the
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answers that we find. Um, you know, sometimes it's about impressing people like you mentioned,
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but I, you know, sometimes I think it's jealousy, um, try to prove that we're successful to other
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people. Maybe, you know, advertisements maybe have a little more of an effect on us than we ever
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thought. Maybe we are a little more selfish and greedy and self-centered than we ever would have
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admitted. Maybe we are looking for security and happiness and the things that we buy. I,
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I think impressing others is certainly one of the things that pops up for most people,
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but there's more motivation to it than that for sure.
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Yeah. I could see just in thinking about this. One of the other things that I might consider
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would be a scarcity mentality that, Oh, you know, if I don't have this, then
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something's going to go wrong. Or if somebody else gets this and I don't, then I'll have less and
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they'll have more. And we start comparing ourselves to what other people are doing as
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well. I could definitely see how there's a lot to this beyond just a few little factors.
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The, uh, scarcity mindset is a tough one in a world of abundance.
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Well, it's interesting just because it's counterintuitive, right? You think that scarcity
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means you want more to me, that sounds a little counterintuitive, but I imagine it's a large part of this.
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You know, I talked to someone one time who, um, had a whole basement full of Christmas toys is what
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she said she had. And she said, I know what the problem is. Every year after Christmas,
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I see toys on sale. And so I go buy a whole bunch that I'm going to give to my grandkids or
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neighbors or kids at the church, whatever it might be. And she said, and by next Christmas time,
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I always forget they're there. Christmas ends and I go to the store and there's all these toys on
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sale again. And so I, I buy them all again. And it's this mindset of, Oh, this sale isn't going
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to happen again. There's, there's never going to be this opportunity to do it again or to buy this
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now. And so she buys it. Meanwhile, that sale comes along every two months or three months or
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every week if you're at cold and she just ends up with all this stuff, right? It's this scarcity
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thinking in this world of abundance needs to lots of problems.
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Yeah. I have a conversation with my wife. I call it the Costco effect where she'll say,
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it's such a great deal that we need 400 tubes of toothpaste. I'm like, we, we don't need,
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and we'll never ever consume that much toothpaste. And it's just not worth the saving. And that's,
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what's interesting is you hear people will say, well, I'm saving money. I'm saving money. Well,
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it's impossible to save money by spending money. And I think that's what a lot of us fall prey to.
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For sure. For sure. There's a, there's a time and a space, I suppose, for getting a good deal.
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Sure. Yeah. 400, 400 would be a lot of tubes of toothpaste for sure.
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What, what role or research or how much have you dived into the idea of habit and how spending
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habits play? Because I know people and myself included in the past have literally been addicted
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to spending money. Is this a big factor that can be overcome that needs to be overcome? What are your
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thoughts there? I think that owning less is great, but wanting less is even better. I do find that
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there are different journeys that people have to go through. The journey to own less is pretty common
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in our world, never in human history of human beings owned as much stuff as they do now. And so
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there is definitely a rise in popularity of minimalism and decluttering and simplicity and
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owning less and Marie Kondo and everything, right? Like people are drawn to the idea of owning less.
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They want to get organized. They want to get decluttered, but it is a, I think a different
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pathway to saying, okay, not only do I want to own less, but I want to own less for the rest of my
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life. I have found a better life, owning fewer things, a life that is more focused on things that
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matter, a life where I get to direct my money and my time and my energy and focus towards the things that
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I actually want to be directing my life towards. Otherwise, most people, they just declutter
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everything and then keep spending and they just fill everything back up again and they have to go
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back and declutter again. This idea of overcoming consumerism, I think does require a little more
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reorienting or thinking about, you know, what is money for and what is important in my life and what
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good can I accomplish if I were to free myself from consumerism? I think that that's a different
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pathway that people really need to soak in. And honestly, I think that's where the greatest
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benefits are. Like I think that's where we find the greatest significance in life is when we are able
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to remove that desire for consumerism entirely. And we walk into a store and we're thankful for all
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the things that we don't want to buy in the store as opposed to, you know, constantly looking for the
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things that we do want to. This sounds a lot like dieting to me, you know, where people will diet
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and we're coming up in the summer months. And so they'll diet and they'll get the 30 or the 60 day
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beach body or whatever it is. And it's not really a change of lifestyle. So it will produce results,
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no doubt, but it's not a lasting result that I think most people are, or at least say that they are after.
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Yes, indeed. And ultimately, you know, a lot of dieting, ideally, right? It's about health. I think it's
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about when you live a certain healthy lifestyle, it's not, again, just so that I can impress
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everybody with my body necessarily, but it's so that I can live a healthy life, so that I can live
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a long life, so that I can work hard, so that I can accomplish important things. This, I think,
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is the true, the better motivation. Less vanity and more health, I think, is what we need if we're
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dieting or lifting or whatever it might be. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the things that
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you had just said a minute ago that was interesting to me is you brought up the subject of money and
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what it means and how we use it and interact with it. Can you explain your philosophy behind
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money? I'm assuming you have one because you brought that up. So I'd like to hear your take
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on how that plays into your life. Yeah, gosh, how much time we got. I can talk about this forever.
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We got about 20 minutes. Can you distill it into that? Yeah. Money is a very fascinating thing to
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me. And my degree, my college degree is in banking and finance, although I ended up becoming a pastor.
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So there you go. So money and finance is certainly something that I've spent a lot of time thinking
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about. However, for most of my life, it was, how do I get more money? How do I manage money better?
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This is the type of thinking that most of us have when it comes to money. And what I've learned is
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the statistics are, I don't have them in front of me, but it is something like 80% of Americans
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have financial related stress. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Which I find to be a fascinating statistic
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considering the fact that we are like one of the wealthiest nations in the history of the
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world. We have food, we have shelter, we have clothing. The stress is not from we don't have enough
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money. Like certainly most of us are providing for ourselves just fine. The problem to me is that we
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have begun looking for money to provide something that it was never going to provide, happiness and
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security. We think that money will bring us happiness and we think that money will bring
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security. And we always think that because money hasn't brought us happiness and money hasn't brought
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us security, that the answer is I just don't have enough money. Yeah, that you need more of it.
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Yes. And so if my income was at this amount, if my bank account was at this count, if my net worth was
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this, I would then feel happy and I would then feel secure. And so we work hard, whatever,
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we get to that next dollar amount. And we find out again that it doesn't bring us happiness and it
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doesn't bring us security. And so we think to ourselves, oh, I just had the wrong number. I need
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to make more. I need to have more. And then I will find these things in my finances. And so we're always
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stressing about it because we don't think that we've ever have enough. I just think that money is
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never going to provide happiness and money is never going to provide security. There's a level
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of it, certainly. Don't mishear me. But as much as we're looking for it in those things, we're never
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going to discover it. And so I think that's where a lot of our stress comes from. It's not that we
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don't have enough money. It's that we're just looking forward to do things that it was never
00:23:24.120
going to do for us. I think that getting rid of stuff is probably the easy part compared to getting
00:23:31.500
your mindset right around this. And so as you talk about money, I'm thinking about how does a person
00:23:37.160
get to the point where they start to believe that enough is enough, you know, that this position of
00:23:43.280
abundance, I do have enough. I do have what I need. I am taking care of. I am providing for my family and
00:23:47.900
the people I care about. And this pursuit of more is not going to fulfill me. How do you get to that
00:23:54.320
point from a mindset perspective? Let me take a long road to that answer, if you don't mind. I think
00:24:01.280
the short answer is when we become generous with our money, the effect of that is we realize that we
00:24:11.540
have enough money. Like I didn't start there at all. I mean, I just wanted to own less stuff. I
00:24:18.600
was cleaning out my garage on a Saturday morning. I'd spent four or five hours with my five-year-old
00:24:23.940
son was playing alone in the backyard. And I just remember looking at the pile of things in my
00:24:28.840
driveway, knowing, like I would have said that my possessions aren't making me happy, but I saw this
00:24:34.880
pile of dirty, dusty things in my driveway. And out of the corner of my eye, I see my five-year-old
00:24:40.220
son swinging alone in the backyard. And suddenly I had this realization, not only was everything I
00:24:46.060
owned not making me happy, but everything I owned was taking me away from the very thing that did
00:24:51.100
bring me happiness in life. And I was in, like from that very moment, I'm like, I got to get rid of
00:24:57.220
this stuff. I've got to get rid of this burden. I've got to get rid of this distraction. I want to
00:25:01.500
own less. And so I started finding all these benefits, as I mentioned before. At some point then,
00:25:07.860
when I was no longer spending money, always buying more and more stuff or buying whatever was on sale
00:25:16.220
at Best Buy that given week, when I wasn't doing that, I suddenly found that I had money left over
00:25:23.700
to donate to charities, causes that I believed in. And so I didn't necessarily start with a lot,
00:25:32.260
but I gave some money away and I found great joy in it, like great happiness in it, great satisfaction
00:25:40.520
in it. Almost I found more joy in giving my money away to a problem that I wanted to help solve than
00:25:49.280
I ever found in buying a new shirt or a new television for myself. And so I started giving
00:25:56.400
more and more away. And every time I gave away something, gave away some money, I always had
00:26:03.260
still enough food for dinner. And there was always still a roof over my head. And it's usually what I
00:26:10.120
tell people if they don't do any giving. I'm like, just give away $5 this week. Go find a charity that
00:26:16.900
you believe in. Donate $5 this week. At the end of the week, you will still have food on your table.
00:26:22.180
You'll still have a roof over your head. And you will realize that you didn't actually need
00:26:28.200
that $5 that you were okay without it. You already had enough money without it. And this is how I think
00:26:36.300
we begin to overcome this mindset that we have to have more and more and more is that we, we start to
00:26:45.140
give some away and we realize that there's still enough leftover to meet all of our needs. And the
00:26:52.120
answer wasn't that I needed more money because I already had enough all along.
00:26:58.380
That's a really interesting perspective. It leads me to the idea of tithing, which is something that
00:27:03.760
my wife and I pay. And yeah, I think there's some, some spiritual blessings that come with that. We can
00:27:09.400
talk about that another time, but I also think there's this, you said it perfectly, you know,
00:27:14.000
the fact that you can give to a charity or an organization or a church signals not only to the
00:27:20.120
world. And that's not important, but signals to yourself that you have enough and that you can
00:27:24.020
be grateful for what you have. I know it's given us some tremendous blessings by being able to
00:27:29.320
give some of that away to an organization that we feel is, is good. And it's, it's been a good thing
00:27:34.100
for us. Honestly, I think the greatest personal benefit of generosity is, is the realization that,
00:27:41.100
that you already had enough in the first place. I have a 12 week online course where they kind of,
00:27:46.980
where they declutter their homes and unclutter their stuff. And, uh, one of the first questions
00:27:51.820
I always get asked is, Hey, we're getting rid of our stuff. Where should we sell it? You know,
00:27:55.700
how do we sell it? What's the best way to make the most money from this? And I always say, man,
00:28:00.440
if you are minimizing your home, if you are decluttering your stuff, unless you desperately need the
00:28:08.040
money, just donate it. Cause if you're trying to sell it, it just adds burden and stress and time
00:28:16.120
and energy. And you're never really satisfied with how much money you get back from it. But when
00:28:21.540
you begin giving your things away, you find a special joy in that. And you are again, reminded
00:28:27.980
that you, you still already have enough stuff and all of that excess you didn't need. Someone else
00:28:34.960
actually did need it somewhere in your community. I think about this when we look around our house
00:28:40.560
or a garage or whatever it may be. And we think, well, let's have a garage sale. And like you said,
00:28:44.640
let's throw that disclaimer, unless you're doing it because you need to make the mortgage payment
00:28:47.740
or the car payment, or you have some bills or whatever it may be. I think that makes sense.
00:28:51.360
Obviously, if you're not in that position, I would argue, correct me if I'm wrong, that having a yard
00:28:57.600
sale or trying to sell it on eBay or wherever probably goes against the minimalist mindset,
00:29:03.680
not from a possession standpoint, but now you've got to spend the time. Now you've got to spend the
00:29:08.280
energy and you've got to go around town, putting up posters about the yard sale. And you've got to
00:29:11.720
take an entire weekend to sell this stuff instead of hanging out with your kids like you wanted to
00:29:16.360
do in the first place. Like it consumes so many other resources rather than just the possessions
00:29:21.340
themselves. Yeah. Plus I find that generosity becomes very motivating for people that the
00:29:28.000
generosity is not just the product of minimalism, but it's the very motivation and lifeblood behind
00:29:34.180
it. I was talking to a woman one time and she's like, I've done a great job going through my house.
00:29:38.780
Uh, I had a bunch of clothes in my closet and fashion's always been important to me.
00:29:43.640
And I knew it was always going to be the hardest thing to go through is the thing I left for the
00:29:47.320
very end. She said just last week, she was driving downtown and she drove by the, the battered women's
00:29:53.380
clinic, um, shelter in her town. And she said, I don't think I ever noticed it was there before,
00:29:59.900
but I drove by the shelter and it occurred to me that inside there were, I don't know,
00:30:07.120
dozens of women who, who had just left like some in the middle of the night with maybe wearing
00:30:12.920
nothing but the clothes on their back and they're carrying their, you know, their babies in their
00:30:17.140
arms and they were leaving this terrible situation. And, and here they are now seeking shelter and they
00:30:23.300
have this new life that they have to try to figure out. And she said, my mind flashed to my closet full
00:30:30.780
of beautiful clothing that I never wore. And I just said, what a shame that my clothes could really
00:30:37.720
provide such like beauty and dignity and honor and, and help these women, you know, getting off to a new
00:30:46.100
start in their life. And, uh, she said it, it changed everything for me. I went home and I couldn't
00:30:52.400
fill bags quick enough, um, just to know the, the blessing that these clothes would be for some of
00:30:58.380
these women, um, compared to what they were for me. I, I'm a big fan of finding a local charity that
00:31:04.620
you believe in and donating there because I think it has a very much a multiplying effect on the
00:31:10.940
minimizing and decluttering process. A couple of years ago, I did a podcast on creating a rite of
00:31:17.820
passage for our sons. Uh, that message was so well received and there's been such a dismissal
00:31:23.340
of leading boys into manhood by much of society that I decided to take this a step further.
00:31:29.620
That's why on September 20th through the 23rd, 2018, we have decided to host our inaugural order of
00:31:37.620
man legacy event. This is an event designed to forge a stronger bond between you and your son
00:31:43.360
and give you the tools, resources, and guidance to help usher him into manhood. So over the course
00:31:49.400
of three and a half days in the mountains of Southern Utah, you and your sons between the ages
00:31:53.540
of eight to 15 will be participating in a series of events, activities, discussions, all designed to
00:32:00.340
push each of you mentally, physically, and emotionally. And my two oldest sons are also going to be there.
00:32:06.200
So you're going to be able to interact with them and your boys are going to be able to interact
00:32:09.640
with them as well. It's going to be a great event. Uh, you're going to walk away with a greater
00:32:12.860
knowledge of how to help your son become a man, a deeper, more powerful connection with him and the
00:32:18.580
confidence that comes from knowing that you have the tools you need to turn a boy into a man to learn
00:32:25.160
more and to lock in your spot. And you better do this quickly. Cause I think we only have seven or
00:32:29.340
eight spots left visit order of man.com slash legacy. Again, that's order of man.com slash
00:32:36.220
legacy. Do it quickly. I hope to see you there. Now let's get back to the conversation with Joshua.
00:32:43.020
Let's get tactical here. So guys listening to this, they're thinking, yeah, I know I've needed to do
00:32:47.520
this for years. We're on board with this idea or this thought, where do we start? You know,
00:32:52.040
do we start in the, in the walls of our home? I mean, what does this actually look like from a
00:32:55.500
tactical perspective? Well, it starts with all your wife's stuff. Of course. Absolutely.
00:33:01.560
Don't throw away any of the stuff in the man cave or the old recliner that probably should have been
00:33:06.200
thrown away 10 years ago. None of that stuff. No, I, uh, I will only say that for, uh, for people
00:33:11.260
who happen to be married, um, or in a type of, um, relationship. Uh, no, you, uh, it starts with your
00:33:17.440
own stuff. Um, it's always easier to see everyone else's clutter and it's always easy to think that you
00:33:22.900
need to get rid of the kids stuff or what it might be. But, uh, but you can't like,
00:33:27.040
you're the one listening to the podcast. You're the one thinking about this. You've got to go
00:33:30.780
through your own stuff first. A lot of times we try to tackle the hardest spaces first.
00:33:37.220
We're like, man, my garage is just full of stuff. I know that's where I need to start. And that's where
00:33:43.800
I need to declutter. And so they try to tackle the garage and it's such a huge job that they get
00:33:49.880
frustrated and they quit halfway through or, or a quarter in. I like to look for examples where I
00:33:55.960
can tell people that I ran a marathon one time. So thanks for mentioning that.
00:34:01.820
Yeah. I always wanted to run a marathon. Uh, but the idea of running 26 miles always seemed pretty
00:34:06.740
outrageous to me. And I picked up a book, how to run your first marathon. And like the first step was
00:34:12.980
run half a mile and I'm like, Oh, well I can run half a mile. And then the second step was,
00:34:18.200
you know, rest and then run one mile. I'm like, Oh, you don't run 26 miles your first day out.
00:34:25.380
You run half a mile and then one mile and then one and a half and then two. And you build yourself up
00:34:30.440
to these, you know, harder and harder tasks. And so very practical. When I tell people how to get
00:34:36.720
started, I say, go find an easy place that you use that you can fully accomplish. Um, maybe your car,
00:34:45.140
for example, you can probably declutter, you can probably minimize the things in your car in a
00:34:51.420
matter of 15 minutes, CDs and sunglasses and receipts and coins and pens and like just all
00:34:58.720
sorts of stuff that doesn't need to be in your car, finish it, you know, from beginning to end.
00:35:03.560
And then the next time you'll sit in your car, you're like, this feels so much better than when
00:35:10.440
all the junk was in here. Where else can I have this feeling? And so you try your, the living room
00:35:18.220
or your bedroom or the closet, um, and always working easiest to hardest decluttering, um,
00:35:27.740
I imagine this becomes somewhat of a game as well. And that's probably why to some degree,
00:35:31.720
and this might be a psychology lesson, but to some degree you have the harder things later
00:35:35.600
because you've started to build the momentum. You started to build the habits and you've become
00:35:40.760
in a way addicted to eliminating things from your life, which makes those harder spaces
00:35:47.320
Yeah. You notice how owning less has improved your life. I mean, it was within the first couple of days
00:35:53.860
I started noticing, gosh, it's like the room can breathe. You know, it's like I'm more calm
00:35:59.980
in the spaces. Think of all the money that I'm saving by not wanting to buy things and fill things
00:36:05.140
up. I became convinced that less is better than more. And then I got to those harder areas. Um,
00:36:14.260
and it looks different for different people, right? The, the books for some people, the camping gear
00:36:20.060
for others, the tools, uh, the sports memorabilia, right? Like it, it looks different for different
00:36:26.060
people, but you become so convinced and you've seen how less is better that suddenly you get to
00:36:33.560
the shed, you get to the tool bench and you're like, okay, now how is less better here? How can
00:36:41.920
I apply these principles here as well? And, uh, I just kind of primes you, I think for those,
00:36:48.000
those more difficult areas where we're like, well, obviously I'm never going to go through
00:36:52.060
my camping gear. But once you've gone through everything else, you're like, yeah, you know what,
00:36:56.280
it might be kind of nice to be able to find things quicker. It might be kind of nice to just have my
00:37:01.140
favorite of these items as opposed to bringing all this other junk. It would take up less space
00:37:06.620
on these shelves. It'd be easier to pack up and leave when I want to go camping. It would actually
00:37:10.760
allow me to do more camping because I was spending less money on stuff. You start to see how less is
00:37:16.520
better in some of those harder areas as well. It's interesting. You bring this up because I've been
00:37:21.360
thinking to myself as we're talking here, I'm like, well, I don't, I don't really have a problem
00:37:24.720
with this. I don't mind throwing stuff away and decluttering and eliminating and keep things
00:37:29.280
orderly and clean until you mentioned books. And, uh, I'm looking at my bookshelf here behind me
00:37:35.340
and it's apparent that, yeah, I do have a problem with this. And there's probably some books that
00:37:40.600
I have never read or partially read or will never read that probably could be cleared from my
00:37:48.100
bookshelf. So I could definitely see what you're talking about here. I went from three bookshelves
00:37:52.220
down to one, uh, when I minimized my office and, uh, it felt great. Honestly, I got rid of,
00:37:58.640
I got rid of like some old, like books from college and research books. And some of those things that I,
00:38:05.860
it's just very interesting. I got rid of all those things. I remember sitting at my desk a few weeks
00:38:10.220
later and a problem kind of came across my desk and I turned my chair to go get the book that I normally
00:38:16.940
would have pulled off my shelf to find the answer to this problem. And the book wasn't there. And I
00:38:22.760
thought to myself, well, all right, I guess I got to find a new solution to this problem. The old
00:38:29.120
solution didn't work anyway. It's why the problem has resurfaced. It was like I was unburdening myself
00:38:34.240
from my past and I was saying, okay, I got to look forward. Let's find a new solution. Let's find a new
00:38:39.940
way to solve this problem. Interesting. What would you say just to shift gears here a little bit
00:38:45.200
was if any, the resistance, man. And I'm talking about mental resistance that you had
00:38:49.900
when you guys started to declutter your life, were there things that you told yourself
00:38:55.160
that made it more difficult than it should have been or had to be, or was there maybe there wasn't
00:38:59.580
any, maybe it felt so good that you're like, you know, this, this, this is the right thing to do.
00:39:04.280
I really was on board. Um, I started journaling actually the blog becoming minimalist, um,
00:39:11.120
was born out of that decision. I started that weekend just to, uh, kind of a diary of sorts
00:39:17.020
of what I was getting rid of and what I was keeping as I was reflecting on what I was getting
00:39:22.120
rid of, what I was keeping, what questions I was being forced to ask of myself, what benefits I was
00:39:27.900
discovering in my life. There was not a lot of resistance other than just the amount of stuff
00:39:35.400
that I needed to go through. Um, and just the time and effort and the garage and the basement
00:39:41.740
and the shed and the home office, some of those things that were just going to require energy to
00:39:47.540
push through. We, uh, we moved into a smaller house about three and a half years later, a move I've
00:39:54.060
loved. I mean, just more money and more time and more focus to spend on whatever, because I'm spending
00:40:00.600
less money on square footage. It's fantastic. When we downsized to a small house, I realized that
00:40:06.600
there was a bunch of stuff that I had been holding onto just because I had the space and I didn't
00:40:11.540
really need it. Uh, and so even three years later, we got rid of a bunch of more stuff when we moved
00:40:17.000
into a smaller home. And so when I think of resistance, like that's probably the first thing
00:40:21.560
that came to my mind. Just, I held onto things because I had the space and the closets to do so.
00:40:27.400
Um, but when I realized that I didn't have the closets going forward, I realized I never
00:40:32.160
needed this stuff anyway. So maybe just some incorrect assumptions about how much I needed to
00:40:38.420
actually keep. Now we talked a lot about physical possessions, but have there been other areas of
00:40:44.280
your life where this mentality rolled over? You know, one I can think of right off hand would be
00:40:48.340
getting rid of and trying to get my inbox down to zero and unsubscribing from every newsletter I
00:40:54.600
possibly can. And that's actually been pretty liberating. Are there other areas of life that
00:40:58.100
you noticed this transitioned into every, every area, every, absolutely. I define minimalism as
00:41:05.620
the intentional promotion of the things I most value by removing everything that distracts me from it.
00:41:13.480
So minimalism is ultimately about promoting those things that are most important to me by removing
00:41:20.120
all the things that actually keep me from doing more of it. For most people, physical possessions
00:41:26.960
is an easy one to see. Yeah, you're right. I got a whole bunch of stuff that I don't need,
00:41:31.580
but it applies to the way we fill our time, the way we schedule our relationships, uh, the goals we have
00:41:40.520
in life, the way we taking care of our health, the way we live our digital lives. Um, not just what we
00:41:48.000
subscribe to, but how we spend our time online, like what is most important to me? What do I want
00:41:54.580
my life to be about? Uh, and then just what's all this other unintentionality that I've allowed to
00:42:01.340
accrue that is actually keeping me from walking down that road. Yeah, that's a great description
00:42:07.740
of it. And I think that obviously that can apply to every area of life. Well, Joshua, we're bumping up
00:42:12.560
against time here. Uh, I do want to ask you a couple of questions as we wind down. Now, one I
00:42:17.620
overlooked and I apologize preparing you for is this question. What does it mean to be a man? I hate to
00:42:23.680
put you on the spot. That's a question we ask all of our guests though. Oh my goodness. I got to come
00:42:28.120
up with that in, uh, in no time, huh? What does it mean to be, uh, what does it mean to be a man?
00:42:33.380
Um, I think a man is someone who lives, uh, within his convictions, uh, lives within his morals,
00:42:43.160
lives a life that is focused on aligning his actions with his values and is not deterred by,
00:42:53.140
uh, outside voices, um, is certainly open to outside voices, um, but is not deterred from walking in
00:43:01.320
alignment, uh, with their values by opinions or influences that might keep them from it.
00:43:07.780
That's pretty good on the fly, man. How's that on the fly? I'm pretty good.
00:43:11.060
That's pretty good. I got to agree with you on that. So well done. Well done. Well,
00:43:14.560
how do we connect with you? One thing we didn't talk a whole lot about was your book,
00:43:18.040
the more of less. So obviously we want to know where to pick up that and contact you,
00:43:22.120
find out more about what you're up to and how we can incorporate this stuff into our lives.
00:43:25.840
I'm online at becoming minimalist.com. Uh, that's the website that everything's
00:43:31.300
seems to run through. Certainly there's, uh, there's several books. The most recent one is
00:43:35.820
probably the most comprehensive. Like you mentioned, the more of less finding the life
00:43:39.460
you want under everything you own can be found anywhere that books are sold. Um, certainly
00:43:43.980
online for sure. And, uh, yeah, everything seems to run through the website. So I would send people
00:43:48.780
there, um, active on social media and active doing other things, but, uh, everything seems to run
00:43:54.160
through that place. Right on. We'll, uh, we'll make sure we make the connection. So guys know where to
00:43:58.320
turn, Joshua, I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you taking some time with us. You've given me some
00:44:02.840
things to think about, and I'm somebody who felt like I had a pretty good handle on this
00:44:06.860
and I do pretty well in certain areas, but there's obviously some room for improvement. So I'm going to
00:44:11.240
be, uh, minimalizing some of my life as well. After this conversation, I appreciate you, brother.
00:44:16.160
Yeah, it's good. Thanks. Appreciate the chance.
00:44:19.060
Gentlemen, I hope that you enjoyed this conversation. I hope that you're walking away with some valuable,
00:44:23.640
practical information and ideas and how to incorporate some of the idea of becoming a
00:44:29.420
minimalist into your life. As I said earlier, it's been instrumental in helping me free up some space,
00:44:35.140
some mental space, some physical space, and it has been a great, great thing. So if you're not
00:44:40.020
already doing this or have a need or desire to do this, or can see to some degree that it might be
00:44:44.680
beneficial in your life when you look around and see all the, the junk and the stuff that I'm sure
00:44:50.220
you're bogged down with, just like I am, take the stuff to heart, implement it in your life.
00:44:54.540
You're going to see big results. It's going to help free up some space to do bigger and better
00:44:58.420
things in your life. And then make sure you connect with Joshua at becoming minimalist.com.
00:45:04.160
You can do it there or social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you're doing the
00:45:07.960
social media thing, reach out to me. Let me know what you think of the show. Let me know what you'll
00:45:11.500
be doing differently or how you'll be incorporating this information into your life. You can do that on
00:45:17.480
Instagram at Ryan Mickler, or you can do that on Facebook or Twitter, both at order of man. I hope
00:45:24.540
to see you in both places. And then as a parting note, I did want to remind you again, September 20th
00:45:31.140
through the 23rd, 2018 order of man legacy, the inaugural father and son event that we're going to
00:45:37.980
be holding in the mountains of Southern Utah. I've got a great, great three and a half day event
00:45:43.140
experience lined out for you guys. So if you are interested, again, that's order of man.com
00:45:48.420
slash legacy, order of man.com slash legacy. I hope to see you there. Like I said, we've got seven or
00:45:53.900
eight spots. So make sure you do that quickly. So with that said, I will sign out for today.
00:45:58.600
As always, I appreciate you being here. I thank you for being along and part of this journey with me.
00:46:03.200
You, whether you know it or not, helping me become a better man, a better father, a better husband,
00:46:08.200
a better business owner, a better community leader, a better man in general. And I want to make sure
00:46:12.220
that I always give credit where credit is due. And that is due in large part to what you are doing
00:46:17.540
and you holding me accountable as well. Until Friday, gentlemen, take action and become the man
00:46:22.480
you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge
00:46:28.960
of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.