The Jordan Harbinger Show - 594: Joshua Fields Millburn | Love People, Use Things

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

Joshua Fields Millburn (@JFM) is best known as one half of The Minimalists, where he and Ryan Nicodemus write about living a meaningful life with less stuff. Their latest book is Love People, Use Things: Because the Opposite Never Works. What We Discuss with Joshua Fields Millburn: How Joshua found that having more stuff -- including more money -- really isn't the key to success or happiness. The average American throws away 81 pounds of clothing every year when 95% of that can be reused or recycled. How can embracing minimalism help solve this problem? 'Tis the season -- to ask yourself if you're overdoing it on consumption and indulging in a little too much when just a little might go a long way. Why being a minimalist involves more than just waking up one day and getting rid of a bunch of things you don't need -- it's a process of constant evaluation. How can you allow yourself to let go of things that have sentimental value? And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/594 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Missed our conversation with Daniel Pink in which we discussed the psychology, biology, and economics behind scheduling for optimal effect (including sleep) — and why your ideal time to get something done may widely differ from someone else’s? Catch up with episode 63: Daniel Pink | When Is the Best Time to Get Things Done? Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. You mentioned freedom, focus, energy, our skills. These are all other resources that we have, and they're much more limited, especially our time, right? You can get a refund for the thing that you purchase if you're discontented with it tomorrow, but there is no refund for misspent time. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills are the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with people,

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Today, a friend of mine and friend of the show, Joshua Fields Milburn, otherwise known as the minimalist, or half of the minimalists. These guys are everywhere. They've written a bunch of books. They've been on Netflix. You've probably seen them there. Those documentaries really took off online. Asu here on the show, he had a corporate job.

He really earned all of the money he could possibly want. Grew up poor, finally he made it, and realized he was still miserable, maybe even more miserable than before. So we're going to get into the details of that journey and how having more stuff, including more money, really isn't the key to success or happiness. And I know this is not a major surprise to any of you, right? We've talked about this before to some extent,

but I know this conversation takes things in a bit of a different direction. There's some practicals on minimalism that I think are actually not intuitive and pretty interesting and useful. Plus, I thought now was a good time of year to have a conversation about fulfillment and minimalism, especially during this season, where we tend to overdo it on consumption of pretty much every size and flavor and indulge our family and children in the same.

Always a fun conversation with Joshua. I hope you enjoy it and take value from it as well. If you're wondering how I manage to book all these great creators, authors, thinkers every single week, it's because of my network. I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. People in relationships, one of the things that you probably shouldn't be minimalist about. And by the way, most of the guests on our show, subscribe to the course and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Now, here's Joshua Fields Milburn.

You know what the thing is? People have a love-hate relationship with all the stuff they have. I'm sure you've thought about this. It's probably one of the core tenets of what you think about all the time. But people really do have a love-hate relationship with all of the items in their house. And I recently moved into this new house, like in the last year. We had a storage unit for some of the stuff. And I will tell you, I thought of you guys when I was unpacking that storage unit because when we unpacked it, I went, hey, what's in this box?

And my wife said, I don't know, it says plates. And I said, but we have plates. Do you feel like we're short on plates? And she's like, no. So we looked in there and sure enough, it was like, oh, these are like all different colors and like some of them are kind of like chipped. You know, and it's just, it was one box after another

of like weights. But don't we have weights? Yeah, these are different weights. But they're the same amount of weight. On the weight, right? Yes. You know, it was just that. What a metaphor to all the weights that we have that are weighing us down, right?

Right, right. Slash getting me billed per month, like in California, you know, $400 for like a garage size storage unit that has a baby bouncer that's the same as the baby bouncer we have in the garage, but different colors. Or like sort of ripped, but it could be taped, you know, like, why would you tape it? Just get another one. Oh, wait, we already have one. I'd love to start from the beginning with you because you and Ryan, who you do your projects with, your business partner, your hetero life partner, I don't know what you guys, I don't know what you call what you guys call it.

You know, we've been best friends since we were fat little fifth graders. So I just call them my best friend. Okay, that's fine. It's not as funny, but it's fine. We work on some projects together, the minimalist sort of the broader project, and whether that's our podcast or the Netflix films or the books that we put out. we've known each other for 30 years now. That's a long time to still like someone, let alone work with them, right?

You're assuming a lot. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It could be, you are here alone. I noticed that. Yeah, that's a good point. There could be more to the story. Tell me about how you got interested in this because you didn't, you grew up in a way

that would probably not signal minimalism, at least not willing minimalism. That's a good point. I grew up really poor. So did Ryan, sort of on literally on opposite sides of the railroad trains. but it was just the two different poor sides of the railroad tracks. I was on food stamps and government assistance. And we were pretty discontentive when I was growing up. There was a lot of alcohol abuse, drug abuse, physical abuse in the house that we grew up in as well,

the two different homes that we grew up in. And I thought the reason we were so unhappy growing up, you just don't know any better. Well, we didn't have any money, right? And so when I turned 18, I sort of went out and I got that entry-level corporate job. But I spent the next decade climbing the corporate ladder. By my late 20s, I had sort of achieved everything I ever wanted, the six-figure salary, the luxury cars, the closets full of designer clothes. I even had like the big suburban house with more toilets than people. I sort of had all the trappings of consumer society, of consumer culture.

I was living the American dream, but it turns out that that wasn't my dream. And in a way, it took getting everything I thought I wanted to realize that maybe everything I ever wanted. It wasn't actually what I wanted at all. The fancy term for that is memetic desire, and it just basically means that all the things that we want are actually things that other people tell us we want, whether that's corporations or marketers or peer groups or religions or just society at large. They tell us that we want certain things. That's what produces consumerism, right? Consumerism is just the ideology that if I buy things, it's going to make me happy or. more complete. But as you and I know, the opposite is often true. Are things incomplete us in more ways

than one? That's interesting. And it does make sense of, that's why when you declutter, you have this feeling. People say, I have a feeling of peace. And when you watch it, you roll your eyes. And then you try and do it yourself. And you're like, oh, yeah, it does feel. I will tell you, like, going to Goodwill or Salvation Army and dropping off the trunk and back seat full and then going back to your house, loading it up and doing it again is one of the most satisfying, kind of gratifying experiences that I've had in years. And it's like if giving away stuff that I paid money for feels this good, there's a big problem in getting that stuff in the first place. Like, why does it feel better to get rid of it than it did to get it in the first place?

That's the question, right? That opens up so much. Well, so many things happen too, right? So, like, we buy things to make us happy. That doesn't work. So it's like, well, I need more of the things to make me happy, right? Back in my 20s, I bought my first Lexus, and that didn't do it for me. So I needed a second Lexus.

And then, of course, the bigger house didn't do it for me. The walk-in closets full of Brooks Brothers suits and ties and dress shirts. And by the way, there's nothing inherently wrong with these things, Jordan. The problem is thinking they're going to make me happy. It's that whole pursuit of happiness thing. Happiness can't be pursued. It can merely be uncovered. And so when I was buying all these things, it was like, oh, well, that's not making me.

me happy. I guess more will make me happy. And if that doesn't do it, then maybe more, even more, will make me happy. And then the other side of that, though, and we have to be careful with this, because letting go doesn't bring you everlasting bliss either. It simply makes room to figure out what is important. So quite often people will come to us or they'll call into the minimalist podcast and they'll say, hey, you know, I started decluttering and I felt like good at first, but how come I got rid of all my excess stuff and I'm not just happy all the time now. Yeah. Well, Isn't that the same thing? That's like a different kind of consumerism.

It's the constant letting go. There's even a clinical term for this. It's Spartanism. Oh, really? It's the opposite of materialism. Is that what that is? It's the opposite of hoarding, really. Yeah, and so there are five stages of hoarding.

I'm sure we could talk about that. But we all know what the hoarders are that we see on our TVs. Those are stage four, stage five hoarders. They have, you know, just entire houses full of stuff. But most of us in the Western world are at least stage one hoarders. We have problems letting go of our excess stuff. We have problems letting go of the things that aren't adding value to our lives. We still cling to those things.

But the other side of that is they're Spartanists who can't hold on to anything. And it starts with the stuff and they barely own anything. They're unable to hold on to things. But then it materializes in their relationships and their careers. And you find it's like a lot of people who are addicted to self-sabotage, they have this sort of Spartanist side of things. They're both OCD in terms of the OCD spectrum, obsessive compulsive disorders. Some people can't let go.

Some people can't hold on. And really minimalism allows us to identify what are the things that are appropriate to let go of. And what is appropriate for me to hold on to? Because minimalism isn't about depriving myself. You know, we're not the deprivationists. People often think, you know, maybe you're a monk or you're an ascetic if you're a minimalist. But that's not really it at all. If you come to my house, it's not like I own nothing.

everything I own serves a purpose or it brings me joy and the excess stuff is out of the way. Does your living room look like the Apple store? Is that what that means? I think a lot of people really think it means minimalist means like you just have white surfaces and brushed aluminum all over your house

and like there's nothing is sitting out. If that's what you're into, I think that's great. You know, I've got a wife and a daughter and so what was appropriate for my life when I first started minimalism is actually different now. And that's one of the things. I wish, Jordan, there was this list I could give you. Here are the hundred items. If you own them, then you're a minimalist. If you have a kid, you add

50 items. If you have a spouse, you add another hundred items. And here they are. And you'll live in perfect harmony with the world. But of course, the things that add value to my life may not add value to yours and vice versa. And so the things that are excess to me may be perfectly appropriate for you and your family. But the key here is the things that were appropriate for me a decade ago may not be appropriate today. So it's a constant sort of questioning these things that we bring into our life. Do I still need this? Do I still get value from it? And if not, giving myself permission to let it go. Yeah, it's, I cleaned out my mom's and dad's basement when I went back to Michigan a few weeks ago. And this was, this also made me think of you guys because my mom was like,

hey, you got a lot of stuff down there. And I walked down there and it was like old clothes that I thought were really cool. I mean, there was stuff that I didn't even wear that much because I wanted to keep it in good condition for later. And it's like 20 years later, I go, oh, here's this like mock turtleneck with a swoosh on it that I thought was so damn cool that I wore it sparingly to keep it looking fresh and clean. And now it's like stinky and smells like dust and basement. And my mom had kept all of my school, you'll relate to this, had kept all of my schoolwork from like kindergarten to probably seventh grade or sixth grade or something like that. And it was just like, so I opened this box and all these pieces of tissue paper fly out and little like bits of,

it just smells like crans, you know, when you open it because it's hundreds of pages of scribbles and drawings that say like mom on it or something. And it, it was cute. But I, why keep it, right? Because it is hard to let that stuff go because there's sentimental value there, but it's actually, the material item is not doing anything. And so I didn't quite know how to handle it. So what I did is I took photos of everything and then I threw it away. So I have digital clutter now.

Yeah, you did exactly what I often recommend. It's the same thing I did. When my mom died, that's how I stumbled into minimalism was I had to go down to Florida to start dealing with all of her stuff. And I realized very early on, there was no dealing with it. I actually had to do something with these things, right?

And as you mentioned, everything sort of had, was imbued with sentimental value. Now, nothing's inherently sentimental, right? And the things that are sentimental to you, I'm going to look at those and say, I don't want those at all. So why is something sentimental? It's because we tell ourselves that our memories are in our things. Your mom held on to all those drawings and paperwork because she was holding onto the memories they represented, right? She was holding onto a piece of you. But of course, you were never inside those boxes, right? Right. And so you can keep those boxes for years or decades. There's no memories.

inside those boxes. Our memories aren't in our things. Our memories are inside us. Now, of course, sometimes our things, as you just mentioned, our things can trigger the memories inside us. So instead of just holding on to all the things, you can take photos of any of those things that you want to let go of. And, you know, by not selfishly clinging to the excess stuff, a lot of people can still get value from it. Maybe not your seventh grade math homework, but there are a lot of things that we own. You know, the average American household has 300,000. items in it. Oh, God. Who had to, who did that research? That's a horrible project. Can you imagine? Just going around counting people's stuff. Oh, terrible. And wouldn't it be wonderful? If all that things are

bringing us happiness, contentment, joy, tranquility, bliss, but they're doing the opposite. They're causing debt, stress, anxiety, overwhelm. And they're getting in the way of the things that are actually important. Here's a weird paradox of minimalism. As a minimalist, I own far fewer things, obviously. But I actually get much more value from my things than before I was a minimalist and all of my things were watered down with a bunch of useless trinkets that were just getting in the way. A lot of times, you know, on your podcast and in your documentaries and things like that, you mention in your books, you mention that having stuff causes anxiety. And I think everyone kind of knows that. But also, why is this? Because it doesn't really make sense that me having a lot of stuff. Why wouldn't I just

feel prepared for any particular occasion or occurrence if I have a lot of stuff? Why does it? Because it does make me feel weird having it. It's like a, it's almost like it's not the natural state of things for humans to have so much crap. And so there's some sort of evolved desire to not, I feel like it's taking up psychological space, but I don't quite understand why. Have you looked into this at all? Absolutely. So our material possessions are a physical manifestation of what's going on inside us. So we start dealing with that external clutter. If there is external clutter, it's because there's also a lot of internal clutter, mental clutter, emotional clutter, spiritual clutter, relational clutter, career clutter, calendar clutter,

all of these other areas in our lives. And what do we try to do? We try to pacify ourselves with the things. It's not even the things that are making us anxious. It's our expectations. Our happiness, your happiness, my happiness is moderated by my expectations. And so we expect the things to do something for us. But of course, the thing we want is never the thing we want. It's not about acquiring the physical object, the material possession. It's about that feeling we think it's going to give us. And here's the pernicious part about it. It actually does give us that feeling up front.

And we prize that feeling. We value that feeling, that burst of pleasure. But we mistake that pleasure for well-being. And then so we discount all of the other negative feelings it gives us in the aftermath. We don't really think about the cost of our things. Like if you go to the store and the thing you want to buy, is $100, you say, oh, the price of the thing's $100, right? But there's all these additional costs, like storing the thing, as you mentioned,

having a storage locker for our things, or having a larger house or more space to, we sort of have these basements. They're really just mausoleums of stuff, right? So, yeah, good word, yeah. It really is a mausoleum. Like, here's everything I wore in middle school. What are you doing? Why is this still here?

Right. And then we try to organize the things. Organizing is actually the problem. Yeah. You can go to the container store and buy all. these clutter coffins, right? Because that's what they are as well. And we bury our things in these clutter coffins. And yes, we've become well-organized hoarders. Well, the easiest way to actually organize your stuff is to get rid of most of it. And that really starts with letting go of the

expectation that these things are going to make me happy or complete. Yeah, I really do enjoy this. And I was dreading cleaning the basement for literally years because I thought it was going to take so much time and be really hard to let go of stuff. I, I think I cleaned out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of items in less than eight hours, spread out over two days with my mom. It was actually quite fun. We went out to lunch. We went out to dinner.

You know, she was thrilled to get rid of all this nonsense. I think we went out to breakfast and dinner because we worked through the day. But it was like a really fun sort of trip down memory lane. And then it was like, let's get rid of everything. And she's like, okay, are you sure? This is your old stuff. But it was like the whole thing was kind of like looking through a really nice 3D photo album, but you know that you never want to see those things again, right? Because people go, well, I would

never throw away all my old photos. This is like going on a time travel trip through those things, but you know that you never have to do it again. And if you want to do, if you really want the gist of like all of the good feelings, you just look at the photos you took of some of the things you got rid of that you will obviously never miss, like a stinky moldy Mother's Day card from 1991, right? Or earlier. So it really, really is kind of an interesting experience and cathartic isn't quite the right word for it because yes, it's cathartic, but it's also, something you said about making room really did make a lot of sense, right? Because we're used to spending money to try and buy our way to happiness, like you said,

with the expectations. And we do get that payoff up front, whether it's the newest iPhone or a second Lexus or whatever you were talking about right before with your luxury cars and your suits and ties. Now, though, it actually has become quite a lot harder to think before we purchase things, which is what that used to be my solution to over clutter, was I was like, I'm going to sleep on this before I buy it. And then online shopping happened, man, and that went straight out that freaking window. Yeah, we have some rules to deal with this. In our new book, it's called Love People Use Things, because the opposite never works. It sort of was a tagline that started with our live events and then our podcast. And eventually we turned it into a book. It's

about really healing the seven relationships in our life. And it starts with our relationship with stuff, but of course, how do we deal with those things? And as you just illuminated, we've removed all the friction, right? It's one-click buying, it's same-day shipping, it's ultimate convenience. I feel like we're about two years away from just thinking about a thing before it just materializes in our home, right? Drone delivery, man. Imagine like, oh, I'm going to have to wait five hours for this to arrive? No, there's a thing flying through the air that's about to drop this literally into my hands in my backyard. Yeah, and we complain if something shows up a day later or whatever, right?

And it's because we have these new expectations now, right? And so we have some rules in the new book that sort of talk about how to deal with some of these things, the no junk rule, the wait for it rule, et cetera. But here's the real problem. The problem is when we removed all the friction, which sounds really nice, and there's nothing wrong, inherently wrong with convenience, but we've sort of battered ourselves so much with convenience. We removed all that friction that we've accidentally lost the traction as well.

And so it's like trying to drive on a skating rink. Of course you're going to keep careening from side to side. And we're doing that. We're hitting the walls. And it's the wall of anxiety and the wall of discontent and the wall of anger and the wall of sadness. And it's because we've lost all that traction. We're moving all over the place. I like the idea that there's nothing wrong with convenience because I think a lot of folks

who probably hear you speak about this maybe for the first time think. Oh, so this guy just wants me to go back to 1985 mail order where I've got to wait six to eight weeks to get something just in case I don't really want it. Well, then I'm just going to end up making an impulse buy and returning it later. It's the same problem, you know, the same environmental impact of sending something back. And I'm actually thinking about doing a whole new show on this because I think if what you say doesn't convince people, have you looked at all into the logistic nightmare of returning like a pair of shoes you bought from Zappos that's the wrong size or a pair of pants you bought from Amazon that's the wrong size? Like 80% of the that stuff just gets thrown into shoveled into a landfill. Yeah. It's horrible. So the average American throws away 81 pounds of clothing every year when 95% of that can be reused or recycled, right? And so why are we doing that? Well, you already pointed out. We purchased a lot of things are sort of aspirational purchases and they just sort of sit on the shelf or on the hangar. Two reasons for that. One is, oh, we're waiting for the perfect occasion to wear the thing. But more likely than not, it's also, I'm buying that thing because it looked really great on the mannequin or in the advertisement.

And now I feel as though I need to have it, even though it doesn't look great on me. And I don't feel confident and I don't feel good about it. But the sunk cost, I already purchased it, so I might as well hold on to it. And by me holding on to it and not letting go of the thing, now no one is getting value from it. It's just sitting there in the back of the closet collecting dust. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Joshua Fields Milburn. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show.

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place. That link is in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. Now, back to Joshua Fields, Milburn. There's something called recreational shopping or recreational shoppers. Have you heard of these people? It's like large retail chains in Amazon and things like that will label somebody like you or me, well, not us, but somebody who is another human who shops a lot and returns things, a recreational shopper. And these people, they cause hell for these companies, right? Because they'll buy, and this is a real example, they'll buy lawnmowers, tractors, large equipment, and it'll all get shipped to them, and then they'll just return it. And they'll examine where this person lives, and they'll say, this person bought a tractor and they live in, like, New Jersey,

or a giant riding mower, and it's a person who lives in an apartment. It just makes no sense. And there are people that are addicted to these, like, dopamine hits and the convenience and the lack of friction and shopping is turned, it's hard to not blame these people, but also the system is set up against all of their psychology, where they're getting these dopamine hits, and a lot of times things aren't going super well in their lives, right? They're really stressed out, and they're getting a temporary reprieve by ordering makeup.

I had a friend who I won't blow up here on the show. She's a lovely person, but she was going through a really stressful time in her life, and she would buy makeup probably three to four times a week. Yeah. Like mail order makeup. And she had, I went to her house, and she was like, okay, when you come in,

you're going to, I have to explain something to you before you make a snide comment. And I walked in there, and it was just piles of, like, unopened makeup. And she's an environmental activist. And she said the saddest part is they can't reuse any of it because it's makeup. So I can't even return it in good conscience because it's going to get thrown away. Wow. I feel like I have to use it.

And so talk about stuff owning you. This was, like, the worst type of situation she had put herself in. But it was caused in part, of course, by circumstances in her life, but also by deficit advertising. And I'd love for you to talk about this a little more because this does sort of trigger even the most quote unquote normal of us, well-adjusted of us, to buy crap that we don't need.

Yeah. In our last film, it's called Lesses Now. It's out on Netflix. And Annie Leonard's in there, and she's this environmental activist. And she talks about, well, deficit advertising. But really, it's, I think the term that marketers use now is the vertical expansion

of your reference group. Wow. It's really just a fancy way to say keeping up with the Joneses. Because it used to be you would compare yourself against your neighbor. Oh, my neighbor got the Corvette. Now I feel as though I need a Corvette. Well, now you're comparing yourself against everyone you've never met because of your Instagram feed or whatever, the ads on TV or in the magazine, et cetera.

And whenever I do a live event, we're in the middle of this tour right now. Whenever we do a live event, I'll have people in the audience describe what a successful person looks like. described me a picture of a successful person. And it's always the same thing. It's usually a guy with a suit, a watch, a nice car, possibly a boat, a big house. And so this is the idea of success. Well, where did we get that from, right? Nothing wrong with those things.

I have a house, right? I have a car. I own a suit as well. And so I'm not saying that we need to get rid of these things, but understanding, oh, we've been sold this meme of in order to be a successful person, you have to be a particular kind of person. Well, that kind of success doesn't actually exist. This is sort of an iceberg, and all we're seeing is what's above the water here, but what's

below the water? I made really good money in the corporate world, but I had almost half a million dollars worth of debt. Oof, that's a lot, man. Yeah, it took me many, many years to pay that off, right? What was the debt from? That's like, you can't, you got to try to rack up debt like that, you know? You would think so, but...

Not to take a swing at you, but, you know, like... Yeah, well, it doesn't... A lot of money. It doesn't happen overnight. I mean, there are some big purchases there. I had three luxury cars, right? Right. So I had two Lexi, I think, is the plural.

Lexi. And then I had, yeah, a Land Rover. And again, I'm sure they're all fine cars, right? But when you're paying three car payments, not to mention insurance, and you have to have, I had a two and a half car garage. I don't even know what the heck that means, right? What's a half car? So Beauflex and two cars, got it.

Yeah. Exactly. Well, here's the weird thing. So nearly 40% of Americans can't. fit a car in their garage. Guilty. Yeah. But I have gym equipment in there.

It's a good reason. There you go. Well, the thing is, you're using the garage. They're not actually using the garage. No, it's a storage unit. Yeah, it has turned into a storage unit, right? Yeah. And it's not the demon-knize them, but it's to understand, like, oh, I'm spending a

whole lot of money on a whole bunch of things I don't need. You mentioned the sort of problem of, what do you call them recreational shoppers, right? Yeah. I think that's what, like, Walmart calls you when they know you're not. going to keep the thing you order and they ban your ass from from buying yes yeah and so the the problem is that we are to an extent all recreational shopper so they did a study recently 93% of teens rank shopping as their number one favorite pastime oh that's so horrible to hear yeah that's so horrible you can look at kids younger than them you know the average child in the western world has nearly

300 toys but plays with 12 of them each day oh my god And then you do a study on that and you realize like, oh, the same thing we already know, children with too many toys don't enjoy quality playtime the same way as their peers with fewer toys do. And it's because of the paradox of choice. We get so overwhelmed by all of these things that we have. We don't even know what to do with it. We sort of throw our hands up and end up not enjoying any of it. And then as adults, we all have our own toys as well.

So you asked how I got into debt. It's because over time, I thought I needed certain things. I thought I needed the expensive watch. And when the first expensive watch didn't do it, well, of course, I need to have more than one. I can't wear the same watch every day. I need 10 pairs of dress shoes. I need a dozen suits.

I need 70 dress shirts. Who the hell were... 70 dress shirts? I had 70 dress shirts, right? You just hate doing laundry. I guess that's what it sounds like. Yeah, the problem is the laundry day was a nightmare, right? Because it washed 70 shirts.

I need three washers. Yeah. And so nothing wrong with these things. what is wrong is we've been told that we need more, more, more, more. In our culture, we always consider more. We never stop to consider less. And why don't we stop to consider less? Because we don't know what enough is. No one stops to identify what does enough look like for me. And if we can figure out what that picture of enough is, usually it's reached not through adding, but through subtracting. Yeah, that there are hundreds of millions, or I would say just billions of

probably spent on telling us that we're not enough, right, through advertising. So with that kind of onslaught coming at us 24-7, it is difficult and also forgivable that a lot of people, especially young people, don't kind of have the wherewithal to fight that. I mean, you have some of the smartest people in the world trying to fight your ability to combat your ability to fight that when you see an ad on Instagram after looking at a certain influencer or influencer marketing and things like that. I mean, even on this show, I try and be really careful with sponsors and prefer things that are like services over items. And I've rejected many items that I think are going to end up not

lasting long or seem like they are bad for the audience, although I do advertise a whiskey brand. But let's be honest, that could go either way. And it doesn't usually result in clutter. But, you know, there's a lot of things that I think are just bad for us. And companies with some of the largest budgets come at us and say, we want you to advertise this. I don't want to out anyone. I'm trying to find a way to talk around the examples here, but it's very, very difficult. And I can see why this is just, it is just the special forces of advertising coming at you and being like, buy this plastic thing for your plastic thing that covers your plastic thing. That's right. And we'll be thrown away in a year in last 10,000 years in a landfill somewhere.

And further, and I think you said this in the movie less is now, we trade our time, especially more than most Western nations here in the United States, we trade our time to get more money to get more stuff. So actually we're trading our freedom for stuff. And that stuff depreciates in his later junk. And then it's made even worse when you incur debt to do this. So if you think about, instead of just wasting money, you're actually spending your freedom to get that thing.

The calculation, that made a little bit of a shift for me because I was like, well, how much freedom am I giving up if I buy a more expensive watch? Because when you think about money, it's like, Well, I'm doing well. I can afford it. But if you think about how much freedom you're trading for it, even if you can't come up with a concrete measurement, you're like, wow, that's like weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of actual work. What if I took a vacation that long? Or I can have this watch. It's like nobody wants a watch at that point, right? Unless you're just a watch fanatic and you're getting a hell of a lot of value out of it, I'm not going to do that. I would much rather have that vacation than that watch or that upgrade of my whatever thing that I don't care about. Yeah, we think about money as being sort of ultimate resource. And there's nothing wrong with money. I'm not allergic to money as a minimalist.

It's no longer the primary driver for doing what I do. But I'd also be fooling myself if I said it doesn't have a place in the vehicle, right? I just don't let it in the driver's seat, so to speak. But whenever we make considerations, of course, that is one resource. We want to be careful with that resource. We want to be intentional with that resource. But not forsaking the other, I would argue more important resources, attention. time, you mentioned freedom, focus, energy, our skills. These are all other resources that we have,

and they're much more limited, especially our time, right? You can get a refund for the thing that you purchase if you're discontented with it tomorrow, but there is no refund for misspent time. That's interesting. And look, some people might assert that it's easy to say that you need less, but from a superficial point of view, it seems like some of this trend, like the pursuit of less, could also be a form of avoidance. And I wonder what you would say to those people, right? I mean, it almost sounds like your Spartanism argument from before,

but I'm curious what you think. It's really easy to sort of encapsulate, mistakenly encapsulate minimalism in just throw away all of your stuff that you don't want and dot, dot, dot, joy. But it's not quite like that. No, not at all. In fact, I think you're hitting the nail on the head here.

You could have a carpenter who goes to buy a hammer, and just because they purchased a hammer, hammer doesn't actually make them a carpenter, right? And the same thing is true with the minimalist who uses minimalism as a tool simplifying one's life. You can have that hammer and you can bludgeon someone with it. You can also bludgeon yourself with minimalism. You can let go of the things, you can deprive yourself of the things that add value to your life. Everything you own can fit in one of three piles. It's either essential, it's non-essential, but adds value, or it's junk. As a minimalist, I'm really focused on that third pile, getting rid of the excess stuff.

Because we all have the same essentials, right? We all need clothing and food and shelter, vocation, education, et cetera. There's some basic essentials that we need. And then there are the non-essentials. And this is perspectival. What is going to add value to your life may not add value to my life? And so what adds value but is non-essential? I'll give you an example.

Well, I have a coffee table, right? I have a kitchen table. I have a couple in tables in my... It sounds like I have a lot of tables. I don't really. Yeah, you got a lot of surfaces in your apartment, I can tell. Yeah, and so, but the thing is, like, yeah, strictly speaking, I could get by fine without a dining room table, right?

But it adds value to my life. So I'm not going to say, well, we need to get rid of that. Now, it is true that sometimes I'll remove the things that add value for a temporary period of time to see whether or not they're truly adding value to my life or if my life is enhanced without them. But if not, then I certainly don't. want to go without those few things. The problem is most of the things we own, they fit in that third category, that junk category. And those are the things that masquerade as though they add value

because we saw it in an ad or we saw someone else using it. Or maybe we even got value from it five years ago. But now we're clinging to it out of some sort of pious sense of nostalgia. And we're not actually getting anything from it. In fact, it's extracting our resources, our time, our energy, our focus. It brings forth that psychological clutter in addition to the actual physical clutter that's there in your home. I know you've got some core values of minimalism and one is let go of sentimental items. And I found that kind of counterintuitive. I mentioned earlier in the show how I just took pictures of all my kids' schoolwork and then threw the actual stuff away. But I think a lot of people are going to have trouble with that. You know, they're going to look at like a piece of something that they got

from a relative or some other. Maybe it is their kid's schoolwork. I don't know. I'm not going to go, I just kind of like, should I really get rid of this? It doesn't take up that much room. Sure. It does bring me joy when I look at it. Why do you think it's still important to get rid of that stuff at some level or in some occasions, I should say? Yeah, so letting go of sentimental items, but not necessarily all sentimental items.

So here's the problem. If everything is sentimental, then nothing is, right? Yeah, nothing is sentimental, right? And so that's what we do, though. We impart sentimentality, which is just excess sentiment. I mean, you can look it up in a dictionary. Sentimentality just means we have excess sentiment with respect to a thing. And that sentimentality is weighing us down, especially when we're clinging to tens of thousands

of so-called sentimental items. You know, when I was dealing with my mom's stuff sorting through her things, I went back to Ohio with just a handful of sentimental items. Now, I could have kept all, you know, whatever, 300,000 items that she had. Truckload, yeah. Yeah, literally a giant U-Haul that I could have brought everything back and then put it in a storage locker because I couldn't commingle her stuff with my stuff. I already had a big house and in a full basement full of stuff.

But, you know, maybe a storage locker would let me cling to it for a little bit longer, right? And it would give me a little bit of certainty in the moment, but it would actually bring me a whole lot of dread and anxiety because, as you've already mentioned, having to go deal with that weighs on you. Oh, I'll never, you know, I'll get to that someday. Right. I'll hold on to these things just in case I might need them in some non-existent hypothetical future, but that really, really weighs on us. Well, by having much fewer sentimental items,

I get far more value and joy from those things because they're actually displayed. I'm able to use them. They have some sort of function. They're not just sitting in a closet or an attic or a garage or a storage locker somewhere. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest Joshua Fields Milburn. We'll be right back back. Now for the rest of my conversation with Joshua Fields Milburn. You have this 2020 rule, which I call this how to get rid of USB charging cables, because this is really what it is, right? Like I've got a drawer, everyone has this, right? The drawer where it's like, what if I need a firewire 800 cable someday? And maybe you can get rid of that because nothing else uses it.

But every single person listening to this, maybe 1% of the audience is exempt from this, has a bunch of different chargers for their phone, but their current phone probably doesn't use that. exact cable, but like it's the USBC, USBA dilemma, right? Like, you have the bigger one. What the hell are you doing with the Blackberry charger still, right? Yeah. In those Blackberry ones, maybe you can get rid of that. But now your new MacBook doesn't have the big USB. It's got the little ones. It's got the USBC. But like sometimes you might need the bigger one, but do you need all five of those cables? Tell me about the 2020 rule, because this is something where I'm, it's sort of hard to wrap your mind around because it almost still sounds wasteful, but I'll let you get into it before I trash it. It sounds incredibly well.

In fact, it also sounds like an incredible rule of privilege for the ruling class. So let's dispel that. We have a few rules. The 2020 rule is, I think, the very first rule we ever came up with. Now, when we say rules, they're not actual rules. They're boundaries that we set for ourselves. Sure. And they're adjustable as well.

And so here's how the 2020 rule works. We also call it the just-in-case rule. The three most dangerous words in the English language are just-in-case. That's why you're holding on to all these cables, right? and it extends way beyond your junk drawer, your electronics drawer. We hold on to tens of thousands of just-in-case items, just in case we might need them someday. We don't know when, we don't suspect we're going to,

but, ah, you know what, just-in-case. And you know what, you're right. If it was just a couple cables, probably wouldn't be that big of a deal. But it extends to everywhere in our house we're holding onto all of these just-in-case items. So here's how the 2020 rule works. Anything that you're holding on to just-in-case,

you can let go of it because you can replace it for less than $20 in less than 20 minutes from wherever you are. Now at first you hear that and you're like, yeah, but I want to go out and spend 20 bucks every day on a bunch of just-in-case items. Ryan and I came up with this rule back in 2011. I can tell you that's a decade ago. Between the two of us, we've had to use it five times total. In 10 years. In 10 years. The 20 human years, if you multiply by the two of you, you've had to go out five times and repurchase some kind of case. or do-dad that you threw away. Yeah, a pair of scissors or, you know, a pair of shorts or something. We're like, I'm holding on to this just in case. And now, if I have to use that rule, it costs me

less than $20, 20 minutes from wherever I am, and it's given me permission to let go of tens of thousands of other items. And it's not costing me $20 every day. It's cost me $100 over the course of a decade. Who wouldn't want to spend $100 to let go of a bunch of excess stuff that's in the way? It's funny. You preempted my question here because I was going to say, look, man, A lot of people are going to think, man, it's a waste to replace something like that even for 20 bucks. There's environmental costs. There's, of course, the monetary cost. But I was going to guess that you only once in a blue moon have to use it. Now, five times in a decade, let's assume that you're really, really good at picking what you're going to need later and really, or not having

to replace stuff or your MacGyvering charging cables out of paper clips that you find around the Hollywood or whatever. Even then, right, when you look at it, like spending a maximum of $100 or around $100 to get rid of tens of thousands of items, It really does make sense. Because, of course, I was thinking you're just throwing things away and then replacing them three months later. That's even worse than having a junk drawer. Yes. Right?

Just from like a landfill and sort of junk trash perspective. What am I looking at? Carbon footprint, right? Environmental perspective, having to repurchase stuff. But you're right. The value you get from almost never having to do that in an addition, being able to get rid of like an entire garage full of stuff and maybe even, maybe even fit your car in there one day. It seems like a pretty good return. It feels to me that we're so worried about putting our stuff in a landfill, but it's already

functionally in a landfill in your house. Right. But by letting go. It's just in your way. Right. Yeah. But we actually don't have to put it in landfill. That's sort of a last resort.

Yeah. So I have another rule whenever I'm trying to sell something or I'm whenever trying to get rid of something, the first thing I try to do is sell it. If it doesn't sell in a week, I lower the price. If it doesn't sell in 30 days, then I donate it. If I'm unable to donate it, well, then eventually I'll recycle it. if I can't recycle it, well, then yes, there are a few things that will make their way to a landfill. But if we're following that process, we're being much more deliberate.

We're not just renting a dumpster and throwing all of our stuff in it. There are a few things that are going to make their way to a landfill. But most of those things can actually prevent additional waste because what we're doing is we're finding other people who will get value from the things we no longer get value from. And so they don't have to purchase it brand new. They can have a slightly used, you know, whatever, Blackberry cable. they're still using a BlackBerry, and I'm not going to use it anyway. So we might as well find someone else who will. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a lot of people that you can find that we'll use things. I mean, first of all, Goodwill, Salvation Army, but if you live near where I live and you go to

big cities a lot, I've got all these, like, iPhone batteries that you plug in that are external, and you can't really throw them away because it's a battery. You don't want that to happen, and you can't really sell it because it only keeps like 60% of its charge. But I usually pack many when I go to a city like New York or even San Francisco, Chicago, and you see people who are sitting on the street looking at their phone, and they are absolutely thrilled to get an external battery that's almost as good as a new one or half as good as a new one because you've replaced yours and you're like, hey man, here you go, this keeps you from having to like shut your phone down at night or you can watch even more whatever you're streaming and listen to more music, whatever

it is. Because sometimes that's their only connection to the outside world. And you get creative finding what you can do with a lot of this old stuff that you think has no value. And it's actually kind of fun in a way to think about how much somebody else can use something that's literally you're tripping over. It's in your garage. Yeah. Right. It's landfilled in your house somewhere or in a storage unit. It's just in the wrong spot and you happen to be paying for it every month. Tell me about the packing party because this is something that I did when I moved by virtue of the fact that I had to pack everything. And that was like I said at the top of the show very eye-opening. But people can sort of LARP moving, right?

That's a good way to put it, yeah. Well, Ryan and I realized early on, like, the one time you're forced to confront all of your material possessions is when you move, you have to get everything out of your old house. They won't let you leave the stuff behind, right? And so you literally have to box up everything you own. And man, it's a real pain in the butt to box everything up. Even as a minimalist, I don't enjoy moving.

But before being a minimalist, it was a totally different endeavor. And so Ryan and I came up with this wild idea called a pack. packing party because he's a very sort of type A guy and he saw me simplify my life over the course of eight months and he's like, oh yeah, that's great, but like I need to do something quick. I want to do something now. So we just pretended he was moving. I went over to his house one week and we boxed up everything, everything he owned. We even covered his furniture with different cloths and sheets. So it rendered it unusable. And then over the course of 21 days, he unpacked only the items he needed. We talk about this in the new documentary as well. We sort of did a

reenactment of some of the packing party stuff. And so you can imagine that first night he unpackes a toothbrush and some clothes for work and some bed sheets in his bed and the furniture he actually used and maybe a toolkit the next day, only the things that he needed. And over the course of those 21 days, at the end of it, he had 80% of his stuff still in boxes. Wow. And the irony of that is he couldn't remember what was in half the boxes, right? Yeah, we had that. We had that. What's in here? Plates. But we have plates. It's that. It's that all over again. That's right. But it's with clothes, cables, bottles of stuff. If you're like me, there's like electronics and microphones and stuff that you haven't used in a decade that are perfectly good, right? All kinds of stuff. That's a brilliant strategy.

Most people will only have the kind of wherewithal to do this when they are actually moving. Right. But, I mean, can you break it down like one room at a time? Yeah. Because, packing everything sounds really shitty, I'll be honest. Yeah, it does a fact. So in our new book, we had 47 different families do the packing party as well because we're like, hey, this worked for Ryan. Yeah. But let's see if it'll work in the real world with families and different people from around

the world. But we wanted to give this some options. So some people were really brave. They did the whole house. Other people, they could just do one room. If you just want to start with your bathroom, do a packing party for your bathroom or a packing party for your garage or a packing party for your closet even, right? Or you could do multi-room.

We had several families who they did multi-room. So I'm just going to do my living room and my second bathroom. Okay, great. Then you can do that. And what you learn very quickly is there are so many things in here that I was afraid to confront. But when you do it this way, you're only unpacking the things you get value from and you forget about the rest of it. At the end of the 21-day experiment, then you get to decide what things am I going to sell or donate. Ryan got rid of everything that was still in those boxes after 21 days.

he sold or donated all of it. And that was really where the Minimalists.com started was with that 21-day journey. We started writing about that. Yeah, it seems like it would be, and he sort of touched on this before, a little bit addicting, right? Because you're like, what else can I get rid of?

We had that after we had moved and donated all the stuff. We're like, what else can we get rid of? And I was joking with my mom cleaning out the basement. What else can we get rid of? And she's like, oh, are you kidding? I'm making your dad do this next. You know, so they're going through the whole house and getting rid of stuff.

It really is funny how many things you think, but I should keep this. And as you're going through it, you find, I literally found band-aids that were from before I was born. Wow. I opened one just to see if they were still good. And, you know, spoiler, they're not. No, it doesn't.

Like the sticky stuff dried up and got broken down years ago, so you just have this crispy hard sort of paper bandage from 1978 that you can't use, even in an emergency. Yeah, some of this stuff just has to go. If you think about it like this, my mom said, you know, you have to do this now because if we crow, you're going to have to do this alone and it's going to be kind of horrible.

And that was sobering and very... I mean, you went through that, right? Yourself. Yeah. With your own mom's stuff. When I was going through her things, you know, I've written about that and we've talked about it,

but what I'm seeing now is a lot of people come to our live events and there are parents who are like, hey, I'm dealing with this now so my kids don't have to deal with it in the future, right? A lot of times now that we have these two films on Netflix,

we have kids who are bringing their parents and saying, mom and dad, I don't want to have to deal with your stuff. I don't want the stuff that you think I want. And you're holding it on to it. And I'm not going to tell you not to hold on to it. You do whatever you want, but I don't want to have to deal with it. So would you please do something about it or at least not pass it on to me? And so we misconstrue. We get this idea like the thing that's value to me must be valuable to everyone else. Right. But it's just junk for everyone else. And it's going to get in their way. And so we have so many people showing up to the events now, and they're realizing, like,

oh, one of my main motivators is I don't want to burden the people around me. And then as soon as they start letting go, they realize, actually, I was burdening myself in the first place. Right. No, it's 100% true. Okay, for people who don't want to do the packing party stuff, because it's too much of a step, tell me about the 30-day minimalism game, because I think this is a genius way to get people to just force themselves to dip their toes in the water, and then they start getting addicted to it. Well, let's be honest, decluttering can be kind of boring. You don't get excited when you hear the word decluttering, right? You're like, oh, generally no. And so we found a way to make it fun with a little bit of friendly competition. Here's how it works. The beginning of any month,

you partner up with a friend, a family member, a coworker, and you both decide to get rid of some stuff at the beginning of the month. So it starts off really easy to give you that momentum that you need. So on day one, you each get rid of one item. Anyone can do that. Day two, it's two items. Day three, three items. so forth and so on, starts off really easy. But by the middle of a month, I found for me, and my wife and I and daughter, we still do it from time to time, even though we almost always fail. We never make the end of the month at this point. But it allows us to get rid of some stuff.

But by the middle of the month, it starts to get more difficult, right? Day 12, it's like, oh, my God, I have to get rid of 12 things. But tomorrow I have to get rid of 13 things. And on day 20, you have to get rid of 20 things. Whoever goes the longest win, so you can bet whatever you want. You can bet a meal or, you know, $20 or whatever you want it to be. and whoever goes the longest wins, if you both make it to the end of the month,

then you've both won, because you've gotten rid of about 500 items, and that's just a really good start. That's crazy. We've had people play for many, many months. Some people keep going, so it's day 33, they get her 33 items. We have one lady who's been playing for years now.

She just starts over every month. It's one thing on the first day, two things on the second day. Wow. And so it just keeps going, keeps the cycle going of, the cycle of letting go. It seems like it would be tough to get,

once you're in the double digits, it's like, are you, is one paper, clip one item? Like, how do you even, you know, you start to find ways around it because it seems very difficult to do. I'm guessing that once you get into the mode of looking for things that you can get rid of, that's part of the exercise, right? Like, oh, what is that? Oh, yeah, I have jars over there. I should get rid of some of those jars, right? I'm literally looking at a stack of jars. I'm like, why do I have these? They probably got put there months ago. Yeah. Who knows what we were

going to do with them? They might not even be mine. Right. Right. So that's like, if I'm looking around stuff to get rid of all the time, at least for the month that I'm playing this game, that's probably a good mindset to be in that's not causing me a bunch of anxiety about how I have to now pack up everything in my entire living room and then wait for a, what, 20 days or whatever, to get rid of it. I'm trying to get people to try this versus them panicking and thinking that they have to move in order to become, to get the bug of minimalism. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. I mean, so we even have a free minimalism game calendar on our website. It's just The minimalist.com slash game.

You can see all the rules and stuff there. It doesn't cost you anything to play or you just download the free calendar over there. But you're bringing up a really good point. You're talking about retraining the way we think about our stuff because we see some of our things so much that we don't actually see them. We simply take them for granted, literally. Yeah. They just happen to be fixtures within our homes, within our cars, within our offices,

within our lives that we see them every day. So we cease to actually be sensitive to them anymore. And this minimalism game or the packing party are both great ways to start to see those things for what they are. And as we start to let go of those things, yeah, you can make up any rule you want. If you want a paperclip to be one item, fine. It's up to you. Or a box of paper clips could be one item as well, right? And so it's up to us to define that.

But it's really about getting that momentum because at first we're so overwhelmed. We don't know where to start. We don't know how to let go of anything. And the key to the game is just start with one thing. If you let go of one thing and tomorrow you let go of two things, then you'll start letting go and it will become habitual in time. All right, this is solid and I love the practicals, but I know that you've got this itch to do a philosophical kind of,

you got your little monologue on letting go, man. And it wouldn't be a minimalist podcast. It wouldn't be a Joshua Fields Milburn podcast without letting you wax on about this. So take us home, man. Well, we're talking about what to do when we're talking about letting go. but letting go is actually not something that you do. Letting go is something you stop doing. You stop clinging to the excess stuff.

You stop clinging to the toxic relationships. You stop clinging to the bad habits. You stop clinging to all of the things that don't serve you anymore. Even the things that may have served you at one point in time. You know, my daughter's eight years old now. She doesn't play with the toys she played with when she was three, right? And yet we continue to cling to those things from a decade ago or five years ago or whatever. And so letting go isn't about simply decluttering or organizing our life.

It's about understanding our attachment to those things and the absurdity of that attachment, how it's keeping us from being free. It's keeping us from being joyous and content and peaceful. All of these things actually get in the way of our tranquility. So letting go is not something you do. It's something you stop doing as soon as you stop the clinging. Joshua Fields Milburn, The Minimalists.com. Thank you so much, man.

This is a long time in the making. Sorry, it took so long, but it was always great to have you on. It's good to see you. Good to see you, brother. Thanks so much. If you're looking for another episode of the Jordan Harbinger Show to sink your teeth into, here's a trailer with Dan Pink on why some of us are morning people and some of us are evening people and why science says we're more racist in the afternoon.

People were more likely to get parole early in the day and immediately after the judge had a break. If you came before the judge's break, you had a 10% chance. You came right after the judge's break, you had about a 70% chance. They had two groups of jurors. Every group had the same set of facts. One person had a defendant named Robert Garner. The other person had a defendant named Roberta Garcia, but on the same set of facts. Then they had another group that deliberated in the afternoon.

Same deal. When jurors deliberated in the morning, they rendered the same verdict for Garner and Garcia, because it's the same set of facts. But when they deliberated in the afternoon, they were more likely to exonerate Garner and convict Garcia. Racial bias increases during that time. I would love to be the kind of badass who gets up at 4 o'clock in the morning, works out, reads three newspapers in three different languages,

and it's like at the office at 615 before the cleaning crew. But you know what? That's not me. So the idea that everybody can just get up earlier, that's easier said than done. It's not very sustainable. I know there's a ton of fellow entrepreneurs and just regular folks out there that have trouble getting up early and think,

Oh, I'm lazy. About 15% of us are very strong morning people. Marks. About 20% of us are very strong evening people. Owls. Two-thirds of us are in between. We are in some ways walking time pieces. We have time and timing literally imbued in our physiology.

For more with Dan Pink, including how to match your schedule to your body's peak times for rest, recovery, and optimal focus, check out episode 63 here on the Jordan Harbinger Show. Always a fun time talking with Joshua. Simple is not always easy. It seems like it is, but it's not, because it requires us to be intentional about not going with the flow, not storing and buying things. It's taken me a lot to get rid of things, even things that I think I should get rid of. Sometimes I want to sell it instead of donating it, and that becomes the excuse, right?

So I've learned to just give things away or better not to get them in the first place. Thanks to Josh for his time and openness on this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Please try the practicals that you heard about on this. this one, I think you will really get value from those. Links to everything will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please use our website links if you buy books or anything from the guest. It does help support the show. Worksheets for the episodes are in the show notes. Transcripts are in the show notes. There's a video of the interview going up on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com

slash YouTube. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or just hit me on LinkedIn. Relationships are much better than things and you can use the same system, software, and tiny habits that I use to create and maintain my relationships in our six-minute networking course. The course is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Most of the guests you hear on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. This show is created an association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something

useful or interesting. If you know somebody who's addicted to stuff or somebody who wants to experiment with minimalism and doesn't know where to get started, share this episode with him. I hope you find something great in every episode of this show. So please share the show with those you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like podcast. If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what that actually happened? You got to subscribe to What Was That Like? real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives and they're not just giving you

the highlights, they're walking you through it from the inside as the person who actually lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit. Sure, Scott. Another is Sue's parachute failing. Wow, I'm surprised she was around to tell that story. And then there's Michael who was stabbed on a bus, which makes your commute instantly feel a little bit more relaxing. Do anything so if you want to hear some wild and inspiring firsthand stories, I invite you to check out What was that like? Every story is verified. Their site even has photos so you know even the most bizarre stuff you're hearing is somebody's real life. Listen to what was that like on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, or whatever app you're using right now. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you

or not. The through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's consistently interesting. So if you want another show that scratches that I want to understand how people in the world really work itch, search for something you should know wherever you get your podcasts. Look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening. You can thank me later.