The Dr. John Delony Show - The Minimalists on Loving People & Using Things

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode How do I honor my mom while still preferring my wife? My dad just died, and mom is relying on me a lot and my wife is resenting the time and energy I spend with her. John reads some letters Lyrics of the Day:   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: abuse, trauma/PTSD, anger/resentment/bitterness, counseling/therapy, culture/current events, family, goals/life planning, money   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we got special guest, the minimalist in the house. We're going to talk about trauma, childhood, friendship, relationships, their new book on loving people and not things. And I'm the second best looking guy they talked to today. Stay tuned. What up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show. Hope you're doing well. Thank you for joining us. I've been out of town for a few days. James, you've been out of town for a few days. Kelly, of course, is just staying here,

slow and steady. Somebody has to hold this thing together. Kelly, of course, is just staying here slow and steady. Somebody has to hold this thing together. Here we go. Let's just talk about how important Kelly is. It's good to see you. I've missed everybody. I missed you. Nikki B, it's good to see you. And I got some special guests. My friends are in the booth. Jeff and Tiffany. It's good to see them too. Even though I can't see them because they're over there, but you know,

just whatever. Hey, special show today. This is awesome. We have two people who I love. I just, I love them, man. Joshua Fields Milburn, Ryan Nicodemus, otherwise known as The Minimalist. They travel the world teaching people a new way to live, right? A new way to live. And it looks like, hey, let's get rid of your stuff. Man, it's so much more. These guys are awesome. They've got a new way to live and it looks like um hey let's get rid of your stuff man so much more these guys are awesome they've got a new book out and they are here to talk about their childhoods with me we talk about trauma we talk about relationships friendships we talk about a lot of stuff we talk about the seagull effect so good some of you have parents who are seagulls and you'll have to listen to the show to know what that is.

That can be right, right? Yeah, definitely. Parents can be seagulls. They just fly by and... Don't give it away. You gotta just tease it. Oh, I like what you just did there. They actually call this part... This part, this isn't the teaser.

This is the opener, right? It is, technically, but you can have multiple teasers. Just so you know, I asked that question, and James rolled his eyes like a sad father. Like, hey, daddy, did they run four bases in football? And you're just like, no, son. They have touchdowns.

He just seagulled you. He did. He seagulled me. And if you want to know what that is, stay tuned right here on the Dr deloney show all right so i'm here with the minimalist on we are if you're watching this on youtube we are triple same side of the booth thing this are y'all same side of the booth daters right were you yeah yeah yeah i still am well yeah i love sitting on the same side of the booth booth as my wife oh i'm looking at your wife. She confirmed it. She's like,

we do. I was about to make a joke and I'm super not going to. I'm just going to think that's really normal and great and I'm excited for you guys.

Oh, man. Okay, so thanks for, listen, there's a few times in my career when someone just does me a solid,

this is that, right? Y'all have better things to do with your time and so I'm so grateful y'all stopped by to hang out, man. No, thanks for doing this is that, right? I'll have better things to do with your time, so I'm so grateful you all stopped by to hang out. Can I ask you a question before we get started? Absolutely. How does it feel to be the second most handsome radio personality at Ramsey? Who's the first? It's Ramsey, right? I thought it was Ken. I mean...

I gotta be careful, because Dave signs my check. I'm at least tied with Ken. Here's how we can. It feels great. When I drive home and I think, man, I tanked these phone calls. Someone called in. Their marriage was on the brink, and I tried to answer it, but I ended up shoving them off.

I look in the rearview mirror, and I think, but you are the second best-looking guy here. At least I'm toothsome. Exactly. Alright, so tell us how you guys got rolling here. Oh, man. The heck is a minimalist? It all started when we were born. Josh?

As a minimalist, everything I own serves a purpose or brings me joy. That's the sort of stock answer, but let's really break it down to how did we get here, right? Because Ryan and I grew up really, really poor. We're from Dayton, Ohio, right up the street, right up I-75. And we had a lot of sort of abuse in the house, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, physical abuse. And we thought the reason we were so unhappy is because we didn't have a lot of money. And of course, well, when we turned 18, went out and got corporate jobs, climbed the corporate ladder for the next dozen years and found out that maybe money wasn't the key to happiness for us either. In fact, it sort of amplified some bad behaviors that we picked up when we were kids.

And so we started questioning. Two things happened to me. My mom died. My marriage ended both in the same month, right as I was approaching age 30. I was sort of at the pinnacle of this corporate career. I was managing 150 retail stores. I was a director of operations responsible for all these employees, all this real estate. I realized there was something sort of missing. It's the same thing that was missing when I was a kid, though, that sense of meaning, that sense of purpose. And I tried to get it the way many people get it. It's through accumulation, through stuff, through status, through success, through achievement.

And those things weren't working. Of course, I always thought happiness was right around the next corner. And it never was, and it was rather elusive. In fact, I think the pursuit of happiness is one of our biggest problems. It's even in our founding documents. It's in the fabric of this country, right? It's in our air, yeah. But happiness can't be pursued.

It can only be uncovered. Whenever we try to pursue happiness, that's a type of chase, and those chases always lead to some sort of attachment, and those attachments always keep us from being free in a way. And so I was very attached to my stuff. The average American household has 300,000 items in it. And I was like that. I was a bit of a hoarder, a well-organized hoarder. So I had boxes and bins and all of my stuff neatly labeled, but I still had a lot of stuff. And it'd be great if all of those things were making us joyous and happy, but they're often the objects of our discontent, not the objects of our desire when we get them. When we get them, isn't it funny how we no longer want the thing that we thought we wanted? We're on to the next.

Yes, always the next pursuit. And it's not about, well, the fact that I can't appreciate the thing. It's that I'm being told that I'm not enough. And I felt that as a kid. I wasn't enough because we didn't have enough. But then I felt that as an adult, because a lot of advertisers, marketers, demographers, statisticians, they conspire to make us feel inadequate. And of course they have the product or service, the solution to the problem that they've created. And so I never really felt like I was enough. And so I pursued more. And that pursuit

of more left me feeling empty. And when my mom died, my marriage ended, it made me look around and start to question all of that and realize like, oh, oh, the stuff isn't the answer. It is actually the new problem that I have. So growing up in a house of – you just sit between us for a while. We'll get to you in a bit. I'm just here for support. Growing up in a house of poverty, growing up in a house of addiction and or abuse, all that trauma and trauma and trauma. And then you fast forward through what I would imagine would be a nightmare cocktail of trauma. You've made something remarkable.

Take us back to that month. You know what I mean? Well, you know what's fascinating is when I started questioning, it was about eight months where I started simplifying my life. It was holding up objects literally and saying, does this thing add value to my life? And realizing that, oh, I was pretending everything was precious. But if we say everything in our life is precious, well, then nothing's

precious. If everything's valuable, then nothing by definition can be valuable to us, right? If everything has equal value in my life, then it's all worthless. And so I started questioning these things and realizing like, oh, I bought that as an aspirational purchase. Maybe that sweatshirt or that shirt or whatever looked great on the mannequin. Or I thought that I would be the type of person who was in that Rolex ad if I just owned a Rolex. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with the stuff. Ryan and I aren't against stuff. We're not monastic. If you want that, that's fine. But we're trying to figure out a better way to live in society without being of society, as one might say, right? And so over the course of about eight

months, I've radically simplified my life. I got rid of about 90% of my material possessions. But I was talking to Dave about this earlier. The thing about letting go is letting go isn't something you do. It's something you stop doing. You stop clinging to the stuff. You stop clinging to the past. You stop clinging to toxic relationships. You stop clinging to the material possessions you thought were so important. But it doesn't mean you can't hold on to the things that add value to your life. And so a lot of things do serve my life. The paradox of minimalism now is I get far more value from the things I own than I did 12 years ago when I had all of these excess things. So in a way, and I'm trying to draw a link between that month and this awakening, this realization.

Yeah. I got to let mom go. I got to let this relationship go. I got to let this stuff go. Yes. And it all worked together, right? Yeah. In fact, somebody stopped me in a parking lot a few months ago and said, I need to call your show one day.

I just can't do it yet. My mom died, and I've got all her stuff in my house, and I've turned into a hoarder. And I looked at him just in the parking lot and said, you've got to let your mom go. And he started crying in the parking lot, right? But there's this moment. Something triggered in you. Whoa. And then you bring your friend along.

Who was a part of this journey? Who started the journey? He started it. I'm sorry. He was like, dude, get rid of everything. Let's do this. Well, we've been friends since we were fat little fifth graders. So, I mean, we've known each other forever.

And I was at a point in my corporate career where I was working 60, 70, sometimes 80 hours a week. I was doing a lot of drugs. I was drinking a lot. I was chasing all the ephemeral things. It's funny because I think about that. Kelly. I'm looking at Kelly. She's in this phase right now.

Kelly, the drugs eventually stop working. I've been trying to tell her that. You better be super glad there's a whole lot of people in here right now. But yeah, I mean that stuff does stop working after a while. And he talked about the chasing happiness. And I did. Oh boy, I chased happiness. And I would grab it every once in a while.

But as soon as I had a hold of it, it was like fleeting. It was gone. So I just, I got tired of living the way I was living. And, um, yeah, Josh came to me and, uh, he said, Hey man, you got a lot of stuff. You, you might want to check out this minimalism thing. I mean, really it was like this conversation. It started with me. Uh, cause I noticed that he, after his mom died and his marriage ended, I noticed he was living a lot lighter, a lot happier. His attitude had changed. The first thing I noticed is he went to her boss and he was like, hey, man, I'm not answering my phone after seven o'clock. That was sacrilegious in the corporate world. You answer your phone at 11 o'clock if your boss calls you. So it was things like that. And I'm like, what is going

on with you, man? Why the heck are you so happy? He's like, you might want to check out this thing called minimalism. If it was anyone else, I don't know if I would have dove into it the way I did. But, uh, I got really excited. Like he kind of just showed me a few people. There's a guy named Colin Wright. He's a peripatetic writer. He was like traveling from country to country every three months. He carried everything he owned in his backpack. I didn't want to live that life, but I saw what he was using minimalism for. And then he showed me minimalist families.

And there was a gal named Courtney Carver. She lived in Salt Lake City. She had a family, a husband and daughter. There was a guy named Leo Babauta. He had eight kids. He was living in San Francisco. So all these people were living deliberate, meaningful lives.

And really what I saw was common sense, man. And I was just like, oh, I need more common sense in my life. But when you grow up in a house where you don't have a picture of that, and then somebody gives you a picture of what this looks like, right? And that's why I think people have been attracted to you guys. You offer not just a cerebral or some kind of cognitive, like here's a couple of thoughts. No, here's a picture of what this looks like.

Yeah. And we are simply moving through life lighter than you. Yeah. People come to it like moth to a flame, right? It's funny you say that because, like, I remember the first time where I thought I saw what happiness was. I used to work for my dad painting and hanging wallpaper. And we were in this house, and it was a pretty modest house, you know, Midwestern, whatever.

Like, we were in mansions that had bowling alleys and indoor pools, and I never aspired to have anything like that. But we came across this really nice, probably five-bedroom, three-bathroom house, and the family looked really happy. The picture's on the wall. The family looked really happy. And I'm like, Dad, how much do I need to make to own a house like this? Because it was something nicer than, like, he or my mom had ever owned. He's like, Son, if you can make $50,000 a year. So this is like, you know, 94, which is a million dollars. Right. Exactly. If you can make $50,000 a year, you could probably own a house

like this. So that was my number. And then, you know, I eventually made $50,000 in the corporate world. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. I'm not happy. Maybe it's 65,000. Maybe it's 90,000. Maybe it's owning a bunch of stuff. So yeah, I was just like chasing, chasing, chasing. When I got excited about the idea of minimalism, I just looked at Josh. I'm like, all right, yeah, dude, I'm in. I'm a minimalist. Now what do I do? Like a stork drops or an owl comes by and drops it like a certificate in a wand.

I'm a minimalist. Yes, yeah, that's fantastic so we came up with this idea called a packing party where we decided to pack up all my belongings as if i were moving and then i would unpack only the items i needed over the next three weeks so like josh came over and literally helped me box up everything clothes kitchenware towels furniture toiletries picture frames photos even my furniture like we covered it up so over the next three weeks i just unpacked things as i needed it uh toothbrush bed and bed sheets clothes for work the furniture i actually use a tool set just the things that were adding

value to my life and after that experiment i had 80 of my stuff like still sitting in boxes and that was like the huge revelation moment of like like what am i doing yeah like first up here all these things i brought into my life to make me happy and they're obviously not doing their job yeah like i'm not i'm not happy and i'm not using these things and then i started thinking about like oh man my priorities were really screwed up like if you would have asked me before that packing party hey ryan what are your priorities i would have gave some really good packing party, Hey Ryan, what are your priorities? I would have gave some really good answers. Like my health, you gotta be healthy, you know,

gotta have really good relationships. You gotta be grounded. You gotta, you know, contribute beyond yourself in a meaningful way. And then I just looked at like how I was really just giving a lot of lip service to my priorities because all that stuff that was packed up, that's what my priorities were. It was accumulating all that stuff. So I decided to get rid of it, donated it, sold it, recycled it. That's really where TheMinimalists.com started. It was with that 21-day packing party story. Dang, dude.

Yeah. And so back me up. What is brothers, sisters, parents? Yeah. What did your folks do growing up? Yeah, sure. A lot of drugs and alcohol. Yeah. Not did your folks do growing up? Yeah, sure. A lot of drugs and alcohol. Yeah.

Not that we're still hanging on, but it's cool. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, my very first memory, my father was brilliant, but he was schizophrenic. And he started having, right around the time I was two or three, he started having really elaborate relationships with people who didn't exist in the real world. He was a medical doctor. And so I thought that, you know, you would, if you paint the picture of when I was born in 1981, you would see like this well-off upper middle-class, maybe even upper-class family in Dayton, Ohio. And then very quickly he got sick and everything changed. Yeah. Um, my very first memory, I was three years old.

My father extinguished a cigarette on my mother's chest. And we escaped about a year after that and sort of moved to a suburb of Dayton, which also sounds really nice, but it was sort of the opposite of nice. In fact, in our last film, which is on Netflix, we went back to my childhood home there and it's all boarded up and there were like squatters living in it. And I realized like we

actually didn't have enough. And people often come up to us like, oh yeah, I was a minimalist growing up. I was poor. And it's like, well, yeah, I was poor growing up too. And we certainly weren't minimalist. We actually could have benefited from being more deliberate with the few resources we had, right? Because we didn't have a whole lot, but we were sort of reckless with those resources. And then, of course, when I got more money in my 20s, I continued the same habits. Money turned out to be an amplifier of those habits. Magnifying glass, yeah.

Absolutely. And so I made really good money in the corporate world, but I spent even better money. Oh, yeah. So I had heaps of debt. I was actually less well off. It's funny. When I left the corporate world, I was making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in Dayton, Ohio, which is amazing. And I took a 90% pay cut when I walked away from the corporate world back in 2011. I made $23,000 that year.

And I was more financially secure that year because for the first time in my life, I was living within my means and I was, my habits, my actions matched my values for the first time. Not just the lip service values that Ryan was talking about earlier, the priorities and what my priorities were actually in alignment with what I was doing every day. So I talked behind closed doors to people for a long time, years and years and years. And someone in your situation whose mom essentially rescued him

as a young kid, you have brothers and sisters? I have one brother, yeah. Okay. Got people out. And then she passes away. That can be an untethering moment for people. Yeah.

What kept that from being an untethering moment for you? Well, it depends what you mean by untethering, right? So when I think of tethers, I think of that as a metaphor for keeping me bound to something and not being free. Ah, so it was a freedom moment. Yeah, in a way, not because of her, but because of what happened. I think one of two things could have happened. Whenever there's a sort of car crash like that, you can either course correct or you can use that car crash to careen into something else, right? And then it turns into this terrible accident. So when my mom died, I went down to Florida.

She moved down there right before she passed, like a few months before she found out she had stage four lung cancer. She had moved down there to finally retire. And so she spent her last days in St. Petersburg, Florida, living off Social Security. And I went down there one last time after she passed, and this time it was to deal with her stuff. And she wasn't a hoarder, but she had 65 years worth of accumulations, right? She had stuff. And it was all crammed into this one-bedroom apartment.

Old antique furniture, and it wasn't junk. It was things she had accumulated. She really found value in. But the things that are sentimental to her, I could add sentiment to them and make them sentimental to me. But I realized in that moment, before the whole minimalism thing, it was in fact, it was my first sort of dipping my toe into the waters of minimalism. I had to deal with her stuff. And so I looked at all these things and I did what any good son would do. I rented a giant U-Haul. In fact, I had to wait an extra day to get that 26-foot U-Haul, right? And I was just going to bring it all back to Ohio. Now, I already had my own house with a full basement full of stuff, an attic full of stuff, bedrooms full of stuff. So I couldn't co-mingle mom's stuff with my stuff.

And so I rented a big storage locker to just keep all of her things, like a mausoleum of stuff. Yes, that's a great way to phrase that. And then I was looking through these things, and I had a few sort of realizations as I was going through the things. The first one was that I was holding onto it because I was holding onto her memories. And I saw, I found these four boxes under her bed. It was my old elementary school paperwork, grades one through four. And I realized, oh, she was holding onto the memories of me. But then I also realized like, wait, these boxes have moved from house to house to house and they've been sealed for decades. No one's ever opened them. Never.

And so the memories aren't in our things. The memories are inside us. And that was like the first big aha moment as I was going through those things. And then I looked around at all of her things, and I said, oh, wait a minute. I'm getting ready to do the same thing. Instead of storing her things in a box under my bed, I was going to cram it all into this big box with a padlock on it, a storage locker, and then pay hundreds of dollars every month to keep things, what, just in case.

The three most dangerous words in the English language. Those three words justify us holding on to so many things that are actually getting in the way of our contentment. And so I called up U-Haul and I canceled the truck. And then I called and I canceled the storage locker. And I spent the next 12 days selling or donating almost everything. Not everything, but almost everything. And I learned some other lessons along the way. One was about sentimental items.

Because if I would have kept thousands of sentimental items, well, that's sort of like watering down the sentiment in a way. But by keeping just a handful of sentimental items, I was able to get far more value from those few things I kept than if they were all just crammed into that giant storage lot. I was so happy when I got that phone call, because I was supposed to go down there and help him move all that stuff. That's the worst thing about having friends, is the move.

There's nothing worse. I'd rather my friend call and say, hey, man, my house is on fire. I'll help you. But it's, hey, man, can you help me move? Nope. I had somebody ask me one time, I was like, I will pay for half of the moving company

to move your stuff. I actually had two buddies do that once. That's how I will help you. They were going to show up to my house on a Saturday morning to move, and a truck rolled up, and they said, I bought an hour, and he bought an hour.

We're not lifting. We're not doing that. So tell me about your growing up. Oh, man. Yeah, so I had a lot of drug abuse, physical abuse. My mom and dad split up when I was in the second grade. My dad was a very strict, very hardcore Jehovah's witness. So I grew up kind of in that religion. I lived with him most of my childhood. Um, my mom, uh, he got married, had a kid. My mom

got married, had four kids. So I've got five half brothers and sisters. Um, yeah, I mean, yeah. Stepdad was, uh, yeah, he, yeah, he used to be the crap out of me for sure. But at 40 years old, oh, man, I've been through so much therapy and different work, like letting go of the trauma and stuff. And I feel like I have been able to let go of a lot of that. Even with my mom, like my dad doesn't talk to me right now because I'm not a Jehovah's Witness. And I've kind of like spoken out against, like, hey, man, which I thought I was going to be like, oh, dad, here's why you I'm not a Jehovah's witness. And I've kind of like, yes, spoken out against like, Hey man, which I thought I was going to be like, Oh dad, here's why you shouldn't be a Jehovah's witness. And he was like, I'm not talking to you anymore. I'm like, Oh, I should probably shouldn't have done that. Um, and then, uh, my, my mom, her and I are actually

really doing a good job of like rekindling our relationship and uh you know forgiving each other for because i guess we both probably put each other through some trauma like as a child i used to think like oh i'm not responsible for putting her through trauma and maybe i'm not but the stuff that comes up is still those are her battles so like i gotta respect the stuff that comes up for her so she's actually coming out to a visit um like in a week or so with my little niece. Um, yeah. So my brothers and sisters, I have one sister, uh, from my dad, like I said, half sister, she's doing awesome. She like started her own like social media company. She's doing great. And then I've got like, I've got a brother in prison right now. Um,

I got another brother in kind of, he hasn't been to jail in a while, but he's, you know, kind of, he was in and out. I got a sister in like a, in rehab right now. Um, and then, uh, I have another sister who she's doing pretty good. She's got a couple of kids, like found a good guy. Uh, so there's just a lot on my mom's side. There is a lot of, I don't know, angst. I don't know what to call it. You know, just trauma. Yeah. Just trauma. What's going on. Yeah. The SWAT team kicked in his door in the eighth grade. Yeah. Yeah. True story. True story. Yeah. Um, that's sort of like, that's going on, yeah. The SWAT team kicked in his door in the eighth grade. Yeah, true story, true story. That's sort of like, that's the opening scene to some, like the movie about your childhood trauma.

It feels like, is the SWAT team kicking in your front door? Yeah, yeah. So one of the misconceptions, I think, of folks who look and say, if I could, and I think that's that pursuit of happiness, that phrase, if I could just, I think that's a damaging sentence. If I could just fill in the blank. Once you get past, have a place to sleep and some food, some relationships, right? If I could just, is, man, if I was able to write a book, get an audience, get a thing, get a thing, then the slate gets wiped clean for me. Everything's easy.

Beautiful spouses show up and just want to marry you, right? Yeah. What I love, and I appreciate your vulnerability and honesty here, is there's human stories behind all this stuff. Yeah, man. And those human stories show up in random places at weird times. And you still got two moms coming in a week. Yeah.

Exhale, right? Yeah, yeah. And here we're going to – I'm going to be intentional about how – right? And that backs me. Before this conversation, I had wrapped my head around minimalism as a way of being with stuff. It's not. It has to do with an approach to how you walk through life. Yeah.

Right? Because some of the things you're saying about getting rid of – I hear that when people call the show when they're talking about a toxic spouse or a toxic story you've been telling yourself your whole life or parents who fill in the blank, have their own version of the way you should be living or whatever that looks like. And the ethos sounds like it works the same, right? It's just an approach to earth.

Yeah. I mean, stuff is the initial bite of the apple. All that physical stuff is just, it's a physical manifestation of what's going on in here. So once you get rid of that, at least for me, when I got rid of that outward stuff, and I know it's worked for millions of other people, but you start to make room to work with that spiritual clutter, the mental clutter, all that internal stuff that's going on. You can start to examine not just like, why am I bringing, you know, why am I bringing this book into my life? It's, you know, why am I bringing this relationship into my life? Why am I bringing this job into my life? Again? Yeah. And again, why am I bringing in this, this pursuit into my life? So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it is, uh,

it's interesting how minimalism, uh, yeah, it's, it minimalism, yeah, the stuff is kind of the Trojan horse. That's where it starts, but it does go so much deeper. So what makes, are y'all parents? Yeah, I am. Y'all have kids? Yeah, I've got an eight-year-old. Eight-year-old, okay. So what are you doing different?

What makes you a good dad? Well, I think kids are so much wiser than their parents. And I don't mean like earned knowledge over the years. That's something that's different. But it's funny. Her school teaches her mindfulness, which is hilarious because who's more mindful than a child? And what that really tells me is that the school spends six hours and 45 minutes a day making her not mindful. And then they try to say, well, now we're going to get back into our minds, so to speak.

But who is more intentional? Who's more in the moment? Who is more present than a child? And so I think as a parent, I have so much to learn from my daughter, like how to be human in a way, because I've unlearned that humanity over the last 40 years or whatever. And it's been acculturated out of me, right? Especially through the pursuit of the things, you know, the thing you want is never the thing you want. You think you want, you know, I had a Lexus and that didn't do it for me. So I bought a second Lexus. And so now I have Lexi and two car

payments and whatever it is, a 72-month loan and all of these things. And it's like, oh, but what did I actually want there? Oh, I wanted status. I wanted significance. Hmm, that's fascinating. And you think you're going to get significance from a shiny car? From a depreciating asset? Right. How weird is that, right? Well, why do I think that? Well, because I've been told that. I've seen other people who I believe to be significant. And that's not to say there's anything wrong with the car. I own a car now, right? There's not even anything wrong with a Lexus. I'm sure they make wonderful cars. The problem is thinking that is the

thing that is going to solve you. It's going to solve me. Yeah. And so the thing I've learned from Ella, my daughter, is that we're so far away from the moment all the time. We're clinging to the past, right? Or we're clinging to some hypothetical non-existent future, right? And we're so far away from right here, right now. One of the things I recommend to parents all the time is to touch your kid's face. And there's a lot of physiology about kids and nerve endings in their face.

But what often that's a trick for me is to get parents to put their phones down and get eye level with their kid and be present with their kid. It's a both-and, right? But there's something about that presence. Yeah. Can I start touching your face, Josh? That's what this show is for. And you didn't know this was coming, Josh.

I don't have kids, so, you know. He's got to be your guy. I'll start doing that with my wife. I'll just start touching her face. I love it. What's one, you know. He's got to be your guy. I'll start doing that with my wife. I'll just start touching her. Yeah. I love it. What's one thing your kid's going to learn from you? Yeah, I, well, my friend Rob Bell says that kids are

always learning from you, and sometimes it's from your words. They watch you, that's right. Yeah. And so it's fascinating. I remember when she was really young, and I would, you know, tell her, it's like, make sure you use your fork, and then all of a sudden, three seconds later, she sees me pull a piece of broccoli off her mom's plate and pop it on. And of course it's like, oh, I'm telling you to do one thing. And it's, I've become a parody of the parent where it's like, do as I say, not as I do. Right. And so I think

what she'll learn from me is, well, it's the title of the book, really. I mean, it's Love People, Use Things, right? For the longest time, I've used people and loved things. And we have a language problem. You know, I can say that I love you, John, but I also love tacos, right? And one thing means, like, extreme like. But I think most of us us we don't really understand love not even a little bit no to love someone is to see them for who they are without trying to

change them right and so if ella learns anything from me it's that she's her own human being she's not me it's not me trying to force her into anything. Although anytime I do, because I feel like I always know what is best. And sometimes I do. Boundaries are important for an eight-year-old, of course. But sometimes we can erect these unnecessary boundaries. You ever been to someone's house and they just have too many walls in it? Yes. And you're like, well, wait a minute. Who decided to put a wall here and then one right there as well? And I think we do that so frequently with our kids and with our relationships in general. We're putting up all of these barriers between us and the people we love.

For this imaginary catastrophic ending that more than likely won't ever come. That's right. And if it does, those walls aren't going to stop anyway. So, yeah. All right. Hey, let's take a quick break right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show. So you all have been friends since fifth grade. Yeah. I've got – I consider that one of life's greatest wins. Amen.

So I've got three or four buddies, four of them, since we were zero. Same street. We still run together. Nice. The chances of us being able to own, to work together, zero. Right? I'm just going to drive some wedges. That's my goal.

What drives you crazy about each other? How do you still work together? You know what he's saying, Josh? 35 years later. How do we work together? No, we are, oh man, we're exact opposites. So there's something with this symbiotic thing that we have going on.

And it's funny because like our whole lives, not just with the minimalist stuff, but like we have been each other's mentors and mentees. So like we've always looked up to each other and we got really lucky because you think about how many people do you have proximity to? I mean, it's a lot of people, but you're kind of limited. So you don't have a, you know, the billions of people in the world, you're limited

to these people by proximity. So the fact that him and I met each other out of proximity and have been able to work so well together, I mean, no, you're absolutely, it's a special thing. You'll have relational work that you have to do, or do you know, like this weekend, my family and I, we went camping with another family that we know and love. And there was one morning I woke up. I had not slept well. And I grabbed a book and literally headed to the woods. And this family knew me enough to not follow.

Yeah, of course. That's just John being John. He will call me up every once in a while. I mean, he hasn't done this in a while. But especially when he was going through a lot of his trauma, he's like, hey man, I don't want you to call me for a week. Just leave me alone. And I'm like, okay,

that's cool. And you don't take it personal. No. You don't try to jump in and solve it. And then like, this girl that he was seeing, like she calls me up. She's like, Josh told me to not call him for a week.

What is going on? I'm like, that's Josh. Don't call him for a week. Yeah, he's just asking for some support, some space. She's like,

I mean, I understand you're his best friend, but I'm his girlfriend. I'm like, well, this isn't going to last long. And it didn't. Here's a fun game. You should just break up now. Right. No, I mean, we certainly, you know what it is? We're open and honest with each other, and we never, we don't try to shame one another.

If we have a problem with one another, we're very honest about it, very open about it. We don't try to humiliate each other. That may be the greatest friend trait I've ever heard. If everybody in the world had the courage or the strength to call somebody that they love and say, I need you to not call me for a week. And that person could hear it and go, great, I'll see you on Sunday. Instead, we tell ourselves a narrative about what does that say about me? Yeah, it's all about what is this? Oh, I can't solve it.

I can't fix it. When my wife goes to – we're both big counseling proponents. There's the rare moment when she's like, yeah, I'm working through this. I don't want to talk about it with you yet, but I'm going to talk about it. And I think, oh, because I'm not – You immediately make it about me, right? But the fact that you do that and you can hear that is such a great model for friendship. I've never thought of it this way.

But when he asked me to do stuff like that, it's actually an opportunity for me to support him. And I like to be a supportive person. In fact, if you look on the Enneagram, I'm the helper. Yeah. So for me to go out of my way to support him, I look at it as an opportunity to be like, oh, I can help Josh. This is what he's asking for. I don't even have to figure out what he wants. He's telling me what he wants. He's so clear. And how often do we jump in and go, no, what you really need is to come over to

my house and have a bottle of wine and some pasta and we'll solve it. Man, what a gift. Yeah. Well, it's us trying to fix each other, right? And there is no fix, right? There is no fix. Yes. As soon as something becomes fixed, the only constant is change. So you literally can't fix something. And I think the other thing, we did two other things really well. And it took a while to get there, especially for me. I think it took me way longer to get here than Ryan.

We don't try to change each other. And we don't try to convince each other of anything. That last one, by far, persuading is unloving. And so I don't have advice for Ryan. anything. That last one, by far the most... Persuading is unloving. And so, I don't have advice for Ryan. I don't have tips for Ryan. I don't have best practices. You just love Ryan.

There are no shoulds. There are coulds, but there are no shoulds. There's nothing he's supposed to do. The only way to love him, to love anyone, is to not try to change them. I feel the pressure I'll use something simple like tipping

now we're in a world I over tip I could make it a really like oh man what a great guy it's a self esteem issue I over tip too I need to make sure that this person remembers me that I was a cool customer that day, right?

But I can make it altruistic really easily. Sure, sure. But I also know now, if I don't, now it's just someone's going to take a picture of it and post it, right? Is there any, I don't know, man, I'm new to this universe, and so the language is going to be limiting but is there brand limitations that y'all have boxed yourselves into brand limitations yeah it's weird i was it's like dave getting dave ramsey getting a credit card he can't oh right he can't lease a car sure sure the credit card thing is because that's a limitation he set up for himself correct and and if his values were to change around that and he could find a way to articulate that, I don't think it ever would. It doesn't make sense for that.

I mean it's an absurd example. I'll give you an example though. Ryan and I, we needed new computers recently. So Ryan ordered it from the Apple store. The one that was close to my house is in like this giant shopping mall. And I get anxiety going into shopping malls. But I go in there and, of course, seven people run across me. What is the minimalist guy doing in the shopping mall, right?

And it's like, oh, I'm just buying something, a product from a major corporation. And so in a way, it keeps me in check as well because it doesn't – yeah, at first it's like, well, I do care what someone else thinks about me. That's a self-esteem issue, right? But really it's like, okay, are my actions still aligned with my values? Because even though Ryan and I are radically different in terms of personality, we're different on the Enneagram, we're different on the Myers-Briggs test, like exact opposites on Myers-Briggs, but we have the same values. We just have different paths by which to get to those values. Dave and I talk about that a lot.

We have very different beliefs, but we have very similar values. And in fact, that's why I love reading. That's why I love hanging out with cool, interesting people because my goal is to change my beliefs often as I grow up. I can get new information,

learn new things, but I want to keep those tethered to true values. It doesn't sound like you're scared of accountability. And we live in a culture that is terrified. Accountability becomes judgment and it becomes oppressive. I personally need accountability because I've proven to myself over time I can't always walk through life by myself.

Why do we have problems with it, do you think? I don't know. Scared to be called out? there a shame there may be a shame yeah well it's i i think man we could probably do a whole show on that i i think we are we are our wiring is i haven't used machine metaphors but we are co-regulated with other people to know where we are in relationship with other people. And I think when someone holds us accountable, instead of choosing to hear that as a way to bring us closer together, it's weaponized.

See, I've already accepted the fact that I'm a hypocrite. Okay. I mean, we're all hypocrites. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, it's just what level of hypocrite are you? Okay. Um, I hate slave labor. Yeah.

But I sure love my smartphone. Ah. I don't love it, but I really enjoy it. I use it. My laptop, you know, I mean, like, I really care about the environment, but man, there's a lot of cobalt that's in my life. So, I mean, there's a little bit of, what do they call it, cognitive dissonance. Yes. That we all have to live with.

So, yeah. As we bend the arc towards what does it look like, right? Yeah. And then if someone calls me out on something, I can look in the mirror and say, is there a valid point here? Or is this person just being a seagull? There's a difference between criticism and feedback.

Criticism, it's called the seagull effect. Someone flies in, they crap on what you do, and then they fly away. Dude, I love that. I love that.'s called the seagull effect. Someone flies in, they like, crap on what you do, and then they fly away. I love that. And then feedback is like, it's the problem presented with a solution. So if I can differentiate from those

two, if someone's trying to hold me accountable, I can look at it like, is this just criticism or is this feedback and is it something I legitimately need to look at? You'll have to get bombarded oh dude with people deciding their version of whatever their thing is and how do you keep your guys insulated how y'all stay insulated from that well i don't read the comments okay pretty much yeah well it goes back to that should thing right people we've moralized

everything in our culture and i believe in morality, but when it's like, hey, you should go to college or you should own a home at this age or you should do this, you shouldn't do, you should eat that, you shouldn't do that. And it's like, well, wait a minute. These things, right and wrong in most of these instances, they're highly individual, right? Because it's about preferences. It's about our own values. And if you have different values from me, then your shoulds are going to be different than mine. And so there are no universal shoulds in most of these things that we're talking about. And so, yeah, if someone else is sort of heaping their own values onto me, I think at this point, it's fairly easy to dismiss that. Yeah, yeah. The people who love you,

let me say it this way who do you have who have you given permission to speak into hold you accountable oh um i i will let anyone hold me accountable again okay yeah like i don't i don't there's no one i wouldn't like just listen to like if they came to me they're like r so family or friends, like social media is a different world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like family and friends,

I mean, anyone can come to me and say they have a problem with something. And I have, man, I'll tell you when you call yourselves the minimalists, you find out very quickly who your real friends are. It's, it's really,

it was really crazy. Cause yeah, you have all this judgment. You're not a minimalist, Ryan, you snowboard, you know what I mean? It's like, so yeah. Um, but cause you have all this judgment. You're not a minimalist, Ryan. You snowboard. You know, I mean, it's like all this stuff going on.

So, yeah. Because you snowboard. Those are exactly the same thing. And I don't know what has given me this mechanism to just hold space for other people's judgments. Yeah. But, well, the first couple years we did this, it was very difficult. Like, it was, I guess I've just developed thick skin over the last, you know, eight, nine years to where, yeah, I just don't let it ruin my day anymore.

Criticism only hurts if the praise feels good, though. Ooh. Say that again? If you need the praise, then the criticism will hurt more. Okay. If you don't need the praise, then you don't care enough. Then it's just information then. It is, right. And so then it's less about the accountability thing.

In terms of accountability, I often think of the people I seek out. Like we have some great people on our team. You met Podcast Sean in Jordan today. So great, yeah. We got Jess, and we got some new folks who are starting this month. And so we've got a nice core team. And seeking some sort of accountability from them or feedback is a way to keep myself accountable as well. I may not always agree with them.

And that's okay. But I can at least see their perspective. So from using the minimalist ethos here, i had a season where i took everybody's if you had an opinion i was willing to hear it and if you had a reflection for me i was okay let's take it um and especially i was working in university it was every student every student's parent every student's every cultural everybody had an opinion about how i was doing my job and i tried to take them all and it came ultimately had to say well i've got to pare this down to there's about five or about six people who i'm going to get permission to hurt me i'm going to give five or six people permission

to have access to my heart and those are i'll take your criticism i'll take your you know hey you need to do this better you're not very good on this show. You need to help. You should have done it like that. I'll take that all day, but a moral or character judgment, a, Hey, you're not being the person that you said you want to be. I'm going to take that for fewer people. And it sounds like you're, you seek that out. Like we've got a team that y'all hire intentionally, or you surround yourself with say, we're going to listen to them. I think when your actions are in alignment with your values, for me,

I can look in the mirror, no matter what anyone says, I can look in the mirror and be like, dude, I really like you. That to me is the... That is... That's it, right? If you can look in the mirror and say, I like you. And if anyone can help me like myself better, then I'm all ears.

Yes. That's beautiful. But anything else that comes my way, it's just like, man, I've worked so hard over these last 10 years to really – and I'm not perfect, man. But my short-term actions align with those long-term values. And the more you do that, the more you like yourself, the less the criticism bothers you, really. Yeah. Because you're just untethered to it, right? Yeah.

I realize that your opinion doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, you specifically, but also anyone. Correct. That's the thing. What matters is the truth, right? And so that's really ultimately what I'm trying to get to. I don't want to bang my opinion up against yours, and then we're arguing over aesthetics

or something that is on the edges of what is the truth. But if we can get beyond the opinion and beyond sides, it's one of the most dangerous things we have now. We've created these sort of bifurcated sides and it's you versus me. We're otherizing other people. And I prefer community. Community unites around something. Tribes unite against something. And so I'd rather have a community of people who unite around doing some meaningful work. That's actually why we same-sided the booth this entire thing, just to show how unified we are. That's right.

Good idea. Two more questions. So in a decade of doing this, is that about right? Yeah. Do you have a time you were on a stage, you were on a podcast, you were on a radio show, and you look back and think, oh, I was wrong. I've changed my mind on this thing.

I thought you were going to ask me, like, when have I screwed up, like, a talk or something. Or when you have screwed up a talk or something. Go ahead. All right. I'll talk about when I screwed up a talk. You can talk about what – because, yeah, certainly a lot of things have changed. It was our book launch for Everything That Remains back in 2013. And we had this, like, media event. Our publicist set up, like, all these major networks to come 2013 and we had this like media event our publicist

set up like all these major networks to come out and like watch this event and i forgot half my talk it was miserable man on stage on stage like the live talk it was supposed to be like you know 20 minutes long i think it was like nine minutes long because i just blanked on like the center part and i practice it i literally just performed it into camera like two hours before that event but like all the pressure yeah oh it was so embarrassing man i don't think i only think like maybe 20 of the crowd was like wait what just happened he just went from here to here but uh but how long ago was that that was 2013 november 2013 does that haunt you or you just remember it oh it just it actually if anything it's just taught me a lesson to like, to really practice, to really prepare. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I learned early on, maybe a couple of years in that decluttering doesn't work. And so I know that that's weird

coming from the minimalist because people often think of us and they think about decluttering their house. Right. But that's really the problem. Like if I give you a video with the, the 67 steps to declutter your closet is that really going to help you is that your problem you have a shortage of decluttering tips yeah no of course everyone knows how to declutter their closet the question then is why do we simplify our lives because if once you understand the why the how to it takes care of itself or it's it's a Google search, right? The solutions become easy. Yeah.

And so it's easy to start out with tactics, and you have to reverse into the whys, right? Yeah. So we often start with the question, how might your life be better with less? Because that answer is going to be different for everyone. But if you understand that, the decluttering thing, that'll happen. That'll happen as a natural result without the,

your own volition or willing it into being. Say that one more time. So if, if you understand the why, you know, how might my life be better with less? Maybe it's, you know, my finances will be improved. Maybe it's, I'll just have a cleaner house. Maybe it's that my relationships will improve. Less stress or less drama or less nights with no sleep. Exactly. Yeah. And so you have all these benefits. If you truly understand those,

then yeah, taking care of your house, cleaning that up, that's going to be simple. Taking care of that relationship that's been messy. Here's the key, though. Simple is not easy. No, it's brutal. It is.

And we confuse the two. We think they're synonyms. Well, it's just like, how do you lose weight? Diet and exercise. Right. Hey, cool, man. Thanks. Real simple advice. We think they're synonyms. Well, it's just like how do you lose weight? Diet and exercise. Hey, cool, man. Thanks. Real simple advice.

Trillion dollar industry, right? Right. How do you fix your mental health? Have great relationships and eat right and move. Right. Ta-da. Thanks, man. Appreciate that.

All right. Rapid fire here. How do you do a minimalist wedding? Go. We did a whole podcast episode on this. Okay. I'll refer him out. There you go.

You can check out the minimalist podcast episode on minimalist weddings. Gosh did a whole podcast episode on this. Okay. I'll refer him out. There you go. You can check out the Minimalist Podcast episode on Minimalist Weddings. It's like we set this up. I should do this for a living, guys. That was an amazing pitch right there. All right. As a minimalist, can I still go see if we have concerts and comedy shows again? Can I still go? Oh, I love it.

That's one of my favorite parts about living in LA. I know it. You're my favorite minimalist. Yeah, man. Go into the comedy store. I'm everybody's favorite minimalist. Don parts about living in LA I know it you're my favorite minimalist yeah man going to the comedy store I'm everybody's favorite minimalist don't tell him he knows

we're about to go on tour 20 cities so we encourage people yes yes dude these are awesome plugs I'm telling you dude

I'm gonna do this for a living what are two or three books that profoundly impacted you oh man The Power of Now is really good by Eckhart Tolle I don't agree with all his you? Oh, man. The Power of Now is really good by Eckhart Tolle. I don't agree with all his hokey stuff, but The Power of Now is a great book. What about you?

Anything by Anthony DeMello. So Stop Fixing Yourself. That guy's all right, man. Yeah, yeah. That's his newest book. The Way to Love is a classic. Masterpiece. Rob Bell, Everything is Spiritual.

It's a really good one. Or How to Love. Yeah, pretty much anything Rob Bell. Excellent. We'll link to those in the show notes here. Masterpiece. Rob Bell, Everything is Spiritual. It's a really good one. Or How to Love. Yeah, pretty much anything Rob Bell. Excellent. We'll link to those in the show notes here. And then, so I live out in the country, and we got a barn full of anything you can imagine.

And I looked at it this weekend. I saw what the week was that we were meeting, and I had a, like a, this has to stop now. And I looked at my little kids and it's like, they are absorbing this as the norm. Like they're just supposed to be stuff falling on you every time you walk into the garage and whatnot. So this is not like a thinly veiled for the audience question. This is just for your buddy, John.

What's one or two or three things I can sit down. My kids are actually at camp this week, so it's just me and my wife. What's one or two or three things we can sit down tonight and say, hey, let's make this different. Start with that question that I asked. So how might your life be better with less? Get really clear with your wife because her answers are going to be different from yours. How might my life be better with less? That's a why question disguised as a how-to question, by the way. And then beyond that, we have some actual how-to. So in the book, we have, a lot of people use things, we have 16 different rules for living with less.

Boundaries. Yeah, they're really boundaries you can set up in your own life. And then maybe a great way to start is the 30-day minimalism game. You want to talk about that? Yeah. So we came up with this game where you find someone who wants to declutter with you. Maybe it's like you and your wife. I mean, my wife and I do this some months. Where to play the game, you start on the first day of the month. You each get rid of one thing.

And then on the second day of the month, two things. And then on the third day of the month, three things. And then on the fourth... Okay, so you get it. So forth and so on. What do you do on the 27th day? 27 things. And that's...

It's about day 20 where it really starts to get really uncomfortable. You're like, oh man, I got to get rid of 20 things today and tomorrow 21 things. 27 things. And that's, you know, it's about day 20 where it really starts to get, like, really uncomfortable. You're like, oh, man, I got to get rid of 20 things today and tomorrow 21 things. So it's a great start because, you know, if you make it through the month, you would have gotten rid of about 500 items. And you could even make it fun with, like, a friendly bet or something. You know, bet a foot massage with your wife or whatever it is in the winter. $10,000. Josh still owes me $10,000. My wife won't touch my feet.

They're disgusting, man. They're not great. My feet are not great. Real quick, incredible book. What do you want people to know about this book? Just the title. It's all in the title. A lot of people use things because the opposite never works.

It's a relationship book, but not in the traditional sense. It starts with our relationship with our stuff. And it goes into these other areas of life that we've broken, that we need to heal in a way before we can heal our relationship with people. So it's our relationship with stuff, our relationship with our values, our relationship with ourselves. The person we talk to the most is us, right? So good, man. And our relationship with money, et cetera. And so healing all seven of those relationships, starting with the stuff to make room

for what's truly important. Yeah. I love, so one of my pet peeves is using machine analogies to describe people. And you touched on it, just that idea of how do I fix my wife or how do I fix my husband? I just hate that language.

I love the language of healing. It's a similar metaphor, but it's very, very different. It's human. Yeah, it's beautiful. And it leaves a scar. It leaves a reminder and it comes back strong. Hey guys, thank you so much for joining us. For real, for real, this makes my heart

feel so good. Y'all are so kind. I'm so grateful. Hey, you don't even remember. You probably remember. Like, a year ago, when I was just starting this thing, you came by, and you were so lovely and kind. And then a few weeks later, on the internet, I'm still learning how the Instagram works. But it was like a Friday 5 follow. Okay. I don't know.

But you sent people. And at the time, I had like 11 followers. And at the end of the day, I had like 22. Nice. It was 100% increase straight up for the minimalists. Heck yeah. Huge win. But it made my heart feel good.

It's the little things, guys. I'm so grateful for y'all. Y'all are the best, the best. Okay, so as we end every show, I almost just ended again. By the way, Inside Baseball, this is the second time we've done an ending because I blew it the first time. When we end every single show we've ever done

with my favorite song of all time, but we got Josh and Ryan here, and then I forgot it, and so we had to do it again, and so here we are. Kelly took a break in her incredible drug use. I paused mine. I put the needle down for a minute.

Wow, you went dark. I was just going to let you off with weed or something. I think this is a heroin deal, but whatever. Needles. Needles it is. All right. Favorite song of all time. Favorite song of all time.

So favorite lyrics are from the song from Andy Davis called Good Life. Andy Davis. Yeah, he's from Nashville. And man, so he's got this line that I think perfectly sums up what we talk about with this whole minimalism thing. He said, we struggle to pay rent because jeans are expensive. And how good is that? Because our priorities are always, how can I look good? How can I impress someone else?

Well, I'll buy these jeans, even if it means that I can't afford to pay my rent this month. And you just rhymed jeans with means. That's like inside rapper baseball right there. Dude, on the song of the day, Joshua. Fields Milburn dropping one line. Say it again. We struggle to pay rent because jeans are expensive. That's it right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you.