#837: How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Tips from Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck
The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig
4.6 • 17.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As we head into the new year, many of us feel like we’re drowning in invisible complexity. So I wanted to hit pause and ask a simple question: What are 1-3 decisions that could dramatically simplify my life in 2026? To explore that, I invited three close friends and long-time listener favorites—Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck.
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More about today's guests:
Derek Sivers is an author of philosophy and entrepreneurship, known for his surprising, quotable insights and pithy, succinct writing style. Derek’s books (How to Live, Hell Yeah or No, Your Music and People, Anything You Want) and newest projects are at his website: sive.rs. His new book is Useful Not True.
Seth Godin is the author of 21 internationally bestselling books, translated into more than 35 languages, including Linchpin, Tribes, The Dip, and Purple Cow. His latest book, This Is Strategy, offers a fresh lens on how we can make bold decisions, embrace change, and navigate a complex, rapidly evolving world.
Dr. Martha Beck has been called “the best-known life coach in America” by NPR and USA Today. She holds three Harvard degrees in social science and has published nine non-fiction books, one novel, and more than 200 magazine articles. The Guardian and other media have described her as “Oprah’s life coach.” Her latest book is Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the |
| 0:04.7 | Tim Ferriss show. This time around, we have a different format from my normal long form |
| 0:10.4 | interviews. You can find 800 plus of those at tim.com blog slash podcast. But this time around, |
| 0:16.0 | I thought I would do something very self-serving. There's something on my mind. As we head into the |
| 0:21.7 | new year, many of us, me too, feel like we're drowning in invisible complexity, or perhaps we |
| 0:28.4 | simplified and simplified, but lo and behold, without fail, complexity starts to creep back in. |
| 0:34.9 | This happens, right? It's like going to the gym. You can't just go once. You need to constantly refine and revert to simplify, simplify, simplify, so I wanted to hit |
| 0:44.3 | pause on long-form interviews. We'll have more coming, but ask a simple question, what are the one to three |
| 0:50.3 | decisions that I could make that would dramatically simplify my life in 2026 this upcoming |
| 0:56.8 | year, right, in January, hopefully. To explore that, I invited three close friends and long-time |
| 1:02.8 | listener favorites, Derek Sivers, Seth Godin, and Martha Beck to share what they have done in |
| 1:08.5 | their lives that has worked already. So from Derek Sivers, you'll learn how Derek uses a radical approach to living from first principles |
| 1:15.7 | instead of default settings. |
| 1:17.1 | From Seth Godin, how a handful of hard rules can turn a messy professional life into something simple |
| 1:22.5 | and focused on your best work. |
| 1:24.5 | And from Martha Beck, how making one radical commitment forced her through |
| 1:28.7 | growing pains but led to a vastly simpler life built around peace and meaning. And if you like this |
| 1:35.8 | episode, I'll do more of these because certainly I want to beg, borrow, and steal from people |
| 1:41.3 | like Derek, Seth, and Martha. And I've applied this a lot in my own life. In 2020, |
| 1:46.9 | I used a guiding tenet that I learned, really polished, I would say, from two other podcast guests, |
| 1:52.8 | Greg McEwan, author of Essentialism and Jim Collins, author of many, many mega bestsellers. |
| 1:58.7 | And here it is. Look for single decisions that remove hundreds |
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