I was a very well organized hoarder so it wouldn't have looked like the TV show because I had an ordinal system of boxes and bins stored away in my basement and my attic and in closets so I did a really good job of hiding my hoarding as many of us do.

Welcome to aoc i'm Jordan harbinger today we're talking with Joshua fields no burn of the minimalists you should listen to this episode if you want to learn why letting go of things opens up psychological space and can enhance creativity.

And even improve your health something called a packing party that's probably a lot less fun than it sounds but can result in a dramatic decrease in clutter and that takes the sting out of getting rid of material possessions and a set of rules that will show you exactly what and how to get rid of everything that you don't need so that you can experience the benefits of minimalism without having to go right out and replace everything so enjoy this one with Joshua fields millburn and by the way if you're new to the show we'd love to send you some top episodes and the aoc toolbox where we discussed the

things like body language nonverbal communication persuasion networking negotiation mentorship and everything else we teach here at the art of charm if you're in the United States you can text charmed to 3 3 4 4 4 that's C H A R M E D to 3 3 4 4 4 everywhere else go to the art of charm dot com also at the art of charm dot com slash podcast you can find the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show all right here's Joshua fields Milburn.

One of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you guys is because your path is not that unique right and I think a lot of times people who come on the show they have a really unique path a unique story your path is not that unique it's only unique in that you've actually followed through on getting rid of and becoming minimalist in a lot of ways but having a corporate job not being happy I think a lot of us can relate to that.

Yeah I was remarkably unremarkable I guess you know I'm 35 years old now but seven years ago I was 28 years old and sort of living that cookie cutter American dream yeah I sort of achieved everything I ever wanted the six figure salary the the luxury cars plural you know the closet full of expensive clothes and all the cliché things the suburban house with more toilets than people you know all the stuff that basically filled every corner of.

Of my consumer driven lifestyle and although I was living the American dream I realized it wasn't my dream but unfortunately for me it kind of took two events that happened within the same month my marriage ended and my mother died all in the same month so I sort of looked around it what to become my life's focus and I realized you know I was so focused on.

I'm so called success and achievement especially via the accumulation of stuff that's how I showed you know the trophies of success although these things were supposed to make me happy they were.

I wasn't really doing their job and in fact the more accoutrements that I piled on top of my stash the more discontent the more debt the more stress the more anxiety the more overwhelmed that it led to and eventually got to that point where there was this pinnacle where I had become very successful in a narrow sense but unsuccessful and virtually all other areas of my life and this is a story you've heard on the art of charm you know a thousand times where people are ostensibly successful but they're not.

Not necessarily successful meaning they're not living a meaningful life and I found out the problem for me is I was chasing happiness I think that's the problem you don't end up getting happy if you live a more meaningful life this thing called happiness ends up being a beautiful byproduct but we have to define what that is a little bit more broadly and for me it kind of started with getting the excess out of the way and that's where this thing called minimalism entered the picture.

How did you even come up with the idea and I'm resisting so hard my tactless need to make a joke like you're so minimalist you got ready your wife but um.

Yeah well we had there was a newspaper who wrote article about us after we moved out Ryan and I moved out to Montana and the gist of the article was these two guys get rid of all their stuff including their wives and move to a cabin in the middle of Montana together.

And so you know I think that when you become a minimalist everything you do is instantly steeped in irony right oh that's not a very minimalist number of readers you have you don't sell a minimalist number of books or oh my god you have two pairs of shoes you're a fraud for me minimalism wasn't this destination it was just a tool really I stumbled across this thing is a guy named Colin Wright you're probably familiar with him you run the blog called exile lifestyle and he travels to a new country ever four months based on where his readers

pick so he doesn't even get to select where he's going and while I admired that I thought that was kind of an interesting lifestyle it's certainly not the lifestyle I wanted to mimic I'm not crazy about traveling like he is it's certainly not my passion but he said that this thing called minimalism allowed him to pursue what he was passionate about by getting the superfluous things out of the way so he could focus on what was truly important and that sounded interesting to me and I sort of fell down that online rabbit hole and and was introduced to people like Leo

Babalta who has six kids and a wife and lives in the city in San Francisco and then all these other Minimalists as well men women young old rich poor black white it didn't really matter the common areas for all of these different Minimalists is that they were all living a more deliberate life a life of intention and they issued this American dream the status quo of the accumulation of stuff and instead started to accumulate experiences

in their life and that was really appealing to me and and so I spent about eight months of my life just really simplifying letting go of excess it start for me to start with a question how might your life be better with less and by answering that question I was really able to identify with the benefits of minimalism or the reason I think that question so important is we all understand sort of the how to side of things right like you know how how to declutter your closet the much more important thing is the why to side of things what's the purpose where am I

going so that's going to give me the leverage I need to actually make some changes in my life and and start to let go and then that led to another question you know does this add value to my life I looked around at my house or my new apartment then after my marriage ended the average American household has more than 300,000 items in it yikes of course most of us aren't hoarders right we just own a lot of stuff we have this lifetime of accumulations that we hold on to many of the things we hold on to just in case

these three most dangerous words in the English language so there I was looking around at all my stuff and I knew that some of it would add value to my life but I didn't know what and so I started asking this question does this add value to my life and I started off small and I decided to get rid of one item a day over the course of 30 days which if you have 300,000 items you're not going to put a big dent in that number but that wasn't really the purpose the purpose was to get some momentum because I was so attached to everything I gave so much meaning

to all this stuff and so the end result was of course I let go of way more than 30 items in the first 30 days way more because it became this kind of personal challenge discovering what I could get rid of how many unneeded items I could remove from my hoard and so I searched my rooms and closet my cabinets and hallways my car and my office just always rummaging for items to part with and the more I did it the lighter I felt the freer and happier I sort of became as I let go

and people around me notice to you know I never jumped up and said look at me I'm becoming a minimalist except for that huge blog that you guys run and the four books that you guys wrote about it

well but not at first you know I was still in the corporate world right now I was the director of operations for 150 retail stores I'm living that corporate life these two events happen to me and all of a sudden people around me started noticing there was a change in me and people at work started saying you seem less stressed lately what's going on you seem so much calmer

what you been doing you seem so much nicer and so that really opened up the door for me to talk about minimalism and then my best friend Ryan Nicodemus who I've known since we were fat little fifth graders he came me one day and he asked me why the hell I was so happy and that allowed me to open him up to this idea of minimalism and getting rid of the excess stuff so we could focus on what's important and he's a very type a American guy and he said you spent like eight months of your life simplifying that seems a bit excessive

...