809 The Power of Minimalism

This is episode number 809. The power of minimalism. Welcome to the school of greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former Pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin. Leonardo da Vinci said, Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. And Henry David Thoreau said, As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. Solitude will not be solitude. Poverty will not be poverty. Nor weakness, weakness. Welcome to this episode. You are a dreamer and a doer. You are someone who is actively looking to grow your life, to improve your life and the life around you. Your environment matters to you. The relationships in your life matter to you. Your health matters to you. You care about the world. You care about how you're gonna show up in the world. You are consciously and actively making progress towards a better life. And I'm so grateful that you're here. And I love you, Sarah, very much. This is a special episode on the power of minimalism. We've had so many incredible guests who have transformed their life from being in one of chaos to an abundance of material things or just material possessions and also just a lot of thoughts and ideas constantly running in their head, which created a chaotic mind and neurotic heart and body. And this is all about tapping into the power of being minimalist. And what does that mean? What's the value from this? How can we achieve more by doing less? How can we create more love by being an inner peace? And today we've got some special guests. The first one is Cal Newport. He's a computer science professor at Georgetown University. In addition to academic research, he writes about the intersection of technology and society. And he's interested in the impact of new technologies in our ability to perform productive work or these satisfying lives. And he also does not have social media. And because of that, he's able to do deeper, more meaningful work. We've got Jesse Itzler, who is an ultra-marathon runner, who is a best-selling New York Times bestselling author, award-winning rapper, and original partner of Zico Water. He's the co-founder of Marquis Jets and a co-owner of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks. We've got Joshua Fields Millburn, who is the co-founder of the Minimalists. He's got one of the biggest podcasts in the world on this topic, New York Times best selling book, big documentary over on Netflix, and they tour all over the world. He came on here to talk about this. Rich Roll, good friend of mine, who is a graduate of Stanford University, Cornell Law School, accomplished vegan and ultra endurance athlete, former entertainment lawyer, who was overweight, out of shape, living a lifestyle that wasn't working and changed. to this minimal lifestyle. Chris Gillibeau, New York Times bestselling author, speaker, modern day explorer, he's traveled all over the world, and he teaches this as well. He's got his big annual event at World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. In this interview, we talk about the beliefs of being alone and the benefits about that, the lessons of living with monks and what that's like to silence your mind. Why just getting rid of your stuff won't actually bring you peace? So saying that I'm gonna be living alone with nothing to have, that's not gonna bring you peace, but what will? And the value of making drastic life changes. I'm all about saying something is not working, let's cut it off and drastically change. Not small little things, but drastic. And how having a quest can provide meaning to your life. Without a quest or some type of journey, some type of yearning, searching for something bigger, greater, something meaningful in your life, how it'll actually bring more meaning to your life. Very excited about this. Make sure to share with your friends. For someone who feels like they're in a chaotic place in their life right now, send them the Power of Minimalism podcast right now. LewisHowes.com/809 Be a hero in someone's life today by spreading the message of greatness. The School of Greatness is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. As Amica says, Empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs. Whether you're on the road, at home, or traveling along life's journey, their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to ensure you have the right coverage in place. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to amica.com and get a quote today. As America's leading business lender, Bank of.

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Being alone with your own thoughts, right? It's scary, but it does three things. One, it's self-insight. So if you want to develop as a human, figure out what you're about, grow into a new phase of life, become an adult, any of these type of questions, you have to grapple with your own thoughts. You have to process your experiences. You have to try to make sense of it. That requires- Ask the tough questions. Ask the tough questions. What are you upset about that you've done? What are you happy about? And that involves you, you can't do this while you're in input processing mode. So if there's something in your ear, something in your hand, you can't be doing this type of reflection. And so you don't develop. Professional insight requires it, right? Creativity requires you to actually take in all this input that you've been receiving. You got to think about it. So like someone listening to this podcast right now is in input processing mode. So their brain is in a very particular mode, which is, I am now receiving input that comes from another human mind, which is a very special mode. Our brain takes that seriously all hands on deck, right? If you don't then take some time to just think about what you've heard, you're gonna get a fraction of the value out of it, because it's two different things. And then finally there's like a maintenance aspect to it. So, you know, it's a big deal to be processing input from another brain, because again, we take that very seriously. If you're doing it all the time.

So every time you have a down.

Moment, you're looking at social media, for example, which is, you know, all input from other brains. you don't get the downtime that your brain needs just to do all the things it expects to have time to do, and this causes issues. And so I think this sort of low-grade hum of anxiety that so many people feel today, a lot of that is actually lack of solitude. Really?

Yeah.

So if more people were actually alone, they'd be more happy. Yeah. No, not all the time, right?

So I give this quote from the book. I found that in Ben Franklin's journals, when he did his first transatlantic crossing, when he went to London for the first time, and so he was really.

Thinking about Lot of alone time.

Solitude, yeah. So I found it in his journals. And he was talking about how, well, the great sages talk about the value of solitude, but I suspect that if you made the great sages be alone long enough, they would start to regret it. You can't have too much solitude. That's just as bad. I think he kind of hit that on the nose. And so if you're alone all the time, it's terrible. The worst thing you can do to someone is put them in solitary confinement. But if you get rid of every moment of solitude, it can be sort of just as bad in some sense.

Yeah. So what do you recommend for someone who's on social media all day, email, text all day? They never have any downtime because right when they get home, they turn the TV on, they're stimulating constantly. Do you recommend, hey, take a 30-minute walk. Yeah. Just start with that.

Do something without your phone once a day.

Yeah.

That's the easiest way just to get comfortable. Like when you walk the dog or you're whatever going to the drugstore, just leave the phone at home. I did this experiment where I put out a call to my readers and said, I'm experimenting with this idea of a digital declutter where you, 30 days you step away. 30 days you step away. And this is kind of the core sort of suggestion in the book, like 30 days you step away from all social media. All social media, email, too, or not? No, all optional technologies in your personal life. So I can't get you out of answering your boss's email, but online news, social media, games, streaming media, YouTube, right? almost everything you do in your personal life with tech for one.

TV as well? It's a-- It's like movies and TV.

Well, yeah, so different people had different rules for that. Like one of the rules I liked is people said, no streaming media by yourself. So like, yeah, I can watch a movie with a friend or my wife. I'm not just in bed. But I can't just watching the office or whatever. Yeah, which is what everyone does. And that's the idea was that you do this 30 days, then when it's over, you rebuild your digital life from scratch, right? So it's like, mary condo, you clear out the whole closet.

Yes.

Right.

And what brings you joy and- yeah.

You figure it out and then you rebuild it from scratch, right? But I kept getting these reports from people, especially younger people, who did not have an adult life before social media.

Wow.

That it was terrifying. That taking this away that first day was really terrifying for them. And I had underestimated the degree to which for a lot of people, that this is a serious escape. It's not just like, this is dumb, I spend too much time on nonsense. It's actually an escape from hard things they don't want to deal with. Like what? Well, it can be a lot of things, right? I mean, for some people, there's actually hard questions about their life. Like, what am I supposed to be doing? What's my purpose? Am I really living up to my potential? Am I really happy with the type of person I am? Am I just going out partying too much or this or that? and this stops them from having to confront that. And it's incredibly uncomfortable to confront. And for other people, they don't have high quality analog leisure options in their life, which is another thing I learned about it. It seems sort of superficial, like leisure activities, but it's actually really important. Definitely. Like, what are some examples? Like things you do in your time outside of work that is, requires skill, something you can get better at, something that maybe connects you to other people as you do it. It could be like athletics for a lot of people, like even their pickup basketball game or something like this, but also skilled hobbies, community or church group engagement. These type of things that we always used to fill our time with outside of work are really important, but it takes some practice and it's harder, right? And so getting back into that, if you've never been there before, is difficult.

I think you said in your TED video that you read a book every night and you relax on a rocking.

Chair and you're like- I'm such an old man. Can I read a newspaper at the table with my kids in the morning? That's how it is.

That was like my dad.

My dad would read the newspaper after.

Either in the morning, but after work, he'd come home and just read the newspaper, just sitting in the room with us while we were watching TV or playing video games. He was reading the newspaper. And then I would see him almost every night, he would just like fall asleep in his chair, reading the newspaper or a book and just like passed out.

And I'm like, man, he just looks so restful. Yeah, it's like, yeah, yeah, I know, I'd be a good farmer 100 years ago.

Right, exactly.

I could just sit on a porch and whittle or something. But again, it sounds superficial, but I get into it. We go all the way back to Aristotle. right in the Nicomachean Ethics, and you see that it's crucial to have activities you do just for the intrinsic quality. That's crucial for making it through the inevitable ups and downs in life, right? That you have activities that you do that you do just because you appreciate quality, right? If you have that, it's kind of a buffer against various ups and downs, right? If you're really good at cooking or playing music, if you're a musician, even amateur, you can really just appreciate a good piece of music or if you're a knitter or something like that and just, constructing something good, it all seems superficial, but it's actually a really important buffer.

Really?

And we- the in-between times.

The in-between times. And so maybe you're having a hard time in life at the moment, having this sort of anchor, but there's things I do that I just appreciate them for their intrinsic quality. It is like deeply human. We take it for granted, but having the screen, I mean, you can avoid all of this because it's easier in the moment.

And more rewarding. More rewarding.

It's this algorithmically optimized content. You've been reduced to a data tuple of 19,000 data points. Statistical algorithms are processing, and they're feeding you, like, look at this nugget. Look at that nugget. It's reduced you to a statistical gadget. It feeds you these isolated nuggets. And it's just optimized so that you'll want to keep-- it's the same as processed food.

Yeah.

You want more and more of it. You're never satisfied. But if you move away from a real food culture to eat McDonald's, you're.

Not going to be happy in the long term.

I've spent so much of my life exploring the physical side. You know, I've ran a 100-mile race, I've done ultra paddleboard races, I've done marathons, and I love that. I learn a lot from those kind of things, but I've completely neglected the inner work. And I just felt super distracted, a little bit overwhelmed, four kids, wife, work, just like everybody else. and I just felt like, well, who are the masters? Like, who would be the best person or persons to talk about, like, just self-reflection and just. And it was monks. And I didn't know anything about monk culture. I didn't know anything other than, like, watching a couple of movies and reading a couple of blogs about the monk world. So I just said to my wife, I think I'm gonna go live on a monastery. And her immediate reaction was, like, listen to Lewis. Like, there are podcasts for this shit, man. You don't have to go away to a monastery. But I learned best without question by jumping into the unknown. That's the best teaching tool for me. And it's always been the way that I've gotten the most, like, growth. And I was like, man, I'm just gonna go. And I put the plan in motion pretty quickly.

And I saw your before and after photos. I think you sent it to me or you posted it online. And I was like, man, you look so clear and calm. what was the greatest lesson you learned about yourself through the process?

I was very clear and calm. It took me a while to get to that place because when I first got there, literally the first minute I walked in, I took a quick tour and the main monk, like my grandpoo-bah, brother Christopher said to me tomorrow we're gonna start at 7:15 a.m. with prayer, reflection, and meditation. I was like, Great, it's 605 p.m. What do I do for the next 13 hours? And he looked at me dead in the eye and he said, you think? And I was sitting in the room the size of this desk basically. And I said, okay, I'm gonna try to meditate. I'm not a big meditator. My form of meditation's been running. Working out. Yeah, like that's like my alone time, you know. So I set my timer for 20 minutes and I'm like, let me try to focus on my mantra. And I'm going through my routine and I'm getting bombarded with thoughts. Like the worst shit is coming into my head. Why am I here? Am I here? What if something happens to my wife? My kids aren't, you know, all this stuff. And time is going by and I'm like, why hasn't my timer beeped? You know, I've been at this. So I'm like, well, maybe I didn't set it. Let me reset it. I'm like, no, I don't want to cheat. It's gonna happen any minute. So I go back into my mantra and back into my mantra. And after what felt like forever, I'm like, I didn't start the timer. So I go to reset my timer and I look down, three minutes and 27 seconds. and I'm like, whoa, I am that distracted that I can't even like sit quietly for three minutes. Like I'm that overwhelmed and distracted. And I realized that like I'm here for 15 days. Like I'm, you know, like I'm like, this is like, I'm, what am I gonna do? And I couldn't call my wife and be like, what are you doing right now? And there was, I had to work it out in my own head. that was hard. One of the other really big takeaways for me was like...

So that was one that you were really distracted. That was a lesson you learned.

Really distracted. I realized, you know, when I came home, everybody asked me what I missed the most, but nobody asked me what I didn't miss. And I realized that a lot of things that I didn't miss filled up my calendar. So, for instance, I went during the final fight during March Madness. And I've grown up watching March Madness and filling out the brackets and watching all the games. And I didn't miss that at all. I didn't miss going and searching through Netflix, the thousands of films that I could maybe watch and short circuiting because it's just too much. Like, I didn't miss a lot of stuff that I do every day. And I realized that I'm putting a lot, like, I realized that I wanna, we were just talking about this before the podcast started, I'm turning 50. The average American lives to be 78 years old.

Here we go. Doing all the research.

Here we go. If I'm average, I got 28 years left. If I'm average, I hope I'm not.

But you're vegan, you work out, yeah.

But if you reverse engineer that, if you reverse engineer the next 30 years, like I just climbed Mount Washington, there were no 60 or seven-year-old guys on top of Mount Washington. The relevant years you have to do things that you want to do, like it's limited. So my enemy is the clock. And I realized, man, I just got to live with so much urgency and to put as much stuff of the things that I love to do with the people that I love to do them with on my plate. And that's like, as soon as I got home, I'm like, I'm a limit. I'm saying no to everything unless it moves the buckets in my family life. Wellness, finances, or cause related. Like otherwise, I mean, of course I'm gonna have some stuff on my, but the majority of my plate, I wanna fill it up with that stuff.

80-90% needs to be filled up with that. Yeah. Is what you're saying.

Yeah, and I've been very lucky to live my life a lot like that, but certainly the next 30 years, 50 to 80, like that, I mean, man, it's spooky. I feel 32, but there's a reality on, I look at it every day when I pull my driver's license out to get on the plane, I look at my, like, I'm turning 50, man. I start to reverse engineer how I want to live those days. When you're in a routine, time goes really fast. And then you wake up and you're 70, and you're like, I can't climb the mountain. I'm 70. When you get out of your routine, like at the monastery, and you look at the thing and it's three minutes and 27 seconds, time slows down.

I want to stop the clock, man.

I got four kids. So my relationship with time in general was reestablished at the monastery.

Really?

Definitely.

By eliminating the things that no longer support or serve your vision for your life and focusing on things that do.

And not waiting.

Not waiting for what?

So like I climbed Mount Washington, I didn't get to the summit with five friends and I came back and Mount Washington is a really dangerous mountain in the winter. I think it's one of the 10 most dangerous mountains because of the climate. It's cold, like minus 30 and the winds get up to 50 to 75 miles an hour and no visibility, blah, blah. Because of that, I didn't get to the top of this journey I did with five of my close friends. I came back and I'm talking to my wife about it. And because I posted it on Facebook, I was getting bombarded with, you didn't make it. You could six miles to the top. You couldn't get. And I said to Sarah, I failed. And, you know, I felt terrible. I let my friends down. We put it out there. And she said, no, no, no, sweetie. She said, first of all, you dumb skull, get a tour guide.

Right. Don't do it on your own.

Get proper equipment and train for it and go back next year, next winter, and knock it out. And I was like, next winter? I'm going back on Saturday.

Wow.

That's the urgency because there's no guarantee. what next winter is going to do. We could talk about all of our vision. My thing would be like, we'll do it now. You have a five-year plan. That takes too long, man.

Yeah, it does.

It takes too long.

Yeah.

So that's what I mean about my relationship with time. It's like, yes, I eliminated a lot of the things that were known, but I also created a tremendous amount of urgency. I started to look at my enemy, my greatest enemy, other than keeping my health. I mean, we all want to is the clock.

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I've done some pretty interesting experiments over the last six years.

What are the experiences you've done? You've gone without a phone for a few months, right?

I did. So when I first became a minimalist, I said, okay, I'm gonna work hard on paying down my debt. So I moved to this tiny $500 a month apartment in Dayton, and I just started going crazy on paying off all my debt, right? I said, I don't wanna be tied to this lifestyle anymore. in order to not be tied to this career, I need to be able to pay off this debt. And so I went on the ramen noodle diet. Not literally, but- Sure. $1,000 a month lifestyle. Yes, yeah. I spent as little as I could so that I could get out of debt and no longer be tied to these same obligations. And so when I moved into that apartment, I didn't hook up internet for the first few days because it was like a weekend or whatever. And I'm like, Huh. I wonder if I could go 30 days without internet at home. 30 days without internet. I'm going to try it. It'll give me something to write about, right?

Sure, sure.

That was five years ago and I have not had internet at home since. And I run an online business.

Holy cow.

And so I can tell you the reason I don't have internet.

What about your phone?

You've got internet there? Sort of. But I found a way around that too because I wanted to be able to write about that. So it was the most productive month of my life. Wow. Those 30 days and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to get it back next month. And so it just sort of continued from there. And it's not to say that I won't ever have it again someday. We have an office in Missoula, Montana. So I drive to the office and it's a place where I can schedule it. Yeah, I can work there. I have an office at home too, but there's no internet there.

But that's a place for me to create.

You're probably so focused when you're at home writing.

It's deep work. It's full concentration. It's the flow.

Yeah.

Not distracted by social media likes and who left a comment here and.

Exactly. And so, yes, I do have a phone at home, but I keep it on, as soon as I get home, the first thing I do is put it on this charging stand. And in fact, I go out of my way to like keep it away from my person. You're asking me if I had a picture of something earlier, I had to like go into my bag and dig my phone out because I try to be as present as I can and I'm constantly failing at that and that's okay. Like I'm not anyone's Yoda. I fail it all the time, but I learned so much from it. So when I got rid of internet, it was maybe six months earlier, I'd got rid of TV at home and realized that that wasn't adding as much value as I thought it was.

Disconnecting you from your partner or your children or whatever.

Yeah, and so I was so... I had no TV, and then I did no internet, and then for two months I got rid of my cell phone. And you learn about a special kind of loneliness. Because I mean, think about this, you've removed all your pacifiers.

Fire.

Right?

Because it was my first.

You had to be with your thoughts.

Yeah, you had to be with your thoughts. But then, and you have to be with, you know, people and you have to make plans in a different way. And also, here was the interesting thing. You learn a lot about your friends, too, because. Because if you're going to meet someone for lunch and. And I'm running a few minutes behind.

Yes. You text really quick.

Yeah. Right.

I couldn't do it.

You were just there and you're on time. You're waiting. Oh, yeah. And you learn how. What's happening? There aren't any pay phones anymore.

I mean, there was one in Dayton where I lived. I had to, you know, walk in the rain.

Four or five blocks to get.

You don't even have quarters anymore.

So like, how do I play? What do I do? Yeah.

And so you're not remembering the numbers anymore. No, they're all plugged in our phone. I used to remember every number. Yeah. Yeah.

Growing up, you know, your five friends, your home phone, you know?

Yeah.

There's a great John Mayer lyric. He talks about the shape of calling. Like, I no longer remember the shape of calling home. And, and the shape of calling home.

Yeah. Cuz you got, you know, you remember, you used to remember these numbers, like.

On the keypad there or the, the.

The little dial ringer. You remember those?

Oh, yes. Yeah, the rotary phone.

Yes.

Yes.

That was me, like, age six or seven.

Yeah, we totally, I grew up with one of those. So, I realized that once I removed all these pacifiers, that I had to fill the void with something else that was maybe more meaningful. And so, I'd rediscovered these things called books. They're amazing, let me tell you.

But you're so minimalist, you didn't have books. So, you just rented them from the library.

Yeah, no, I wrote them. I rediscovered time to create more. I rediscovered time. And then the cool thing is, minimalism isn't about deprivation for me. I'm not trying to deprive myself of these things. I'm not an aesthetic. I don't want to go live in a cave somewhere. I do want to live in our society. I just want to do so deliberately. And so I decided to bring a phone back into my life. And when I did, I used it more deliberately. No longer do I have Facebook on my phone. No longer do I have email on my phone. I use the phone. Yeah, I use it to make phone calls and send text messages. GPS, that's how I got here today. It was GPS, Uber. I took an Uber to get here. And so the technology is there and I allow it to add value to my life, but when it starts getting in the way, I try to check myself because the phone isn't the problem. I'm the problem. And once I realized that, I knew I could change that by just being more deliberate with how I use it. Minimalism wasn't just about the stuff for me, right? That was the initial bite at the apple that changed everything. But I think we get so caught up in just the stuff. We think decluttering is just the point. I think anyone watching or listening to this could go rent a dumpster, throw all their crap in it, and be utterly miserable because you've just removed the pacifiers. The point isn't just getting rid of the stuff and coming home to an empty house and sulking. No one wants that. I don't want to tell anyone to get rid of your book collection or whatever, whatever adds value to your life, I encourage you to hold on to, but question what adds value to your life?

Yeah, you know, I started the podcast shortly after this book came out, which was in May of 2012. I started the podcast in November of that year, and it was really my intention, you know, I didn't even know if I would do a second episode, but once I kind of got rolling, it was an opportunity to just continue the conversation that I think this book began. and one of the kind of core themes of this book, a lot of people sort of mistook it as a book about running or how to be a better triathlete. It's really not about that. It's about how to basically better self-actualize, how to become, you know, the best, most authentic version of yourself, however that looks for you. And my story is intended really as a metaphor for, you know, I think the unlimited potential that we all have. But one of the themes is that when your heart is true, that the universe will conspire to support you. And when this book came out, I put everything in into like pushing it out into the world and let go of practicing law. My background is in corporate law. And I thought, okay, I'm going all in on trying to sort of create some kind of profession out of promoting these ideas that are important to me, whether it's speaking or writing another book or whatever that may look like. I wasn't really sure at the time, but I thought, okay, my heart is pure. This is the theme of the book. I'm putting myself out there. I'm stepping out and I'm waiting for that universal signal of support. And I gotta tell you, it didn't really come. I was like, phone's not ringing. What am I gonna do? Money was running out and I could go do a speaking gig for free or maybe do a little thing here or there.

Try to sell some books or whatever.

Yeah, you know, and I have four kids. I've got a mortgage. So we went through a very difficult extended period of time that lasted a number of years. I mean, it was like five or six years of touch and go. Julie calls it, my wife calls it, our divine moment, where we were really brought to our knees and forced to really confront our attachment to material things like our house and our cars. We had two cars repossessed. Well, after this book came out, I mean, it's like it was the weirdest juxtaposition because I was getting a bunch of attention and I was sort of in the, you know, in the media. And yet at the same time, there was a lot of kind of suffering. that we had to experience around how to kind of navigate what we were trying to accomplish and do in the material world. And ultimately, you know, we really had to burn in that fire in order to kind of come out. And I think that required a tremendous amount of faith and persistence and really just being in the moment, like day to day, to try to figure out what the next step would be. But I think emerging from that, I mean, now everything's great. Like my life is an embarrassment of riches and I have so much opportunity. and it's insane. Like, I, you know, it's hard looking back to even imagine what it was like back then, but I think it allows me to communicate, you know, with the people that are tuning into my channel and my frequency with a level of humility and honesty and just realness, really, because I know what it's like to kind of be in that place. And that was one of the reasons why I wanted to rewrite the book, 'cause I wanted to tell that story of what happened after Finding Ultra came out from 2012 to present, because I think those events are equally dramatic, if not more dramatic, and certainly more relatable to the average person than some of the ultra endurance feats that are chronicled in the original version.

Yeah.

What would you say is the biggest personal challenge for you over the last five or six years?

I think, and this is a theme that you know well, it really challenged my idea of what it means to be a man. like as a masculine human being, as a head of household. Not providing for a family. Somebody who is supposed to be a provider, somebody who's supposed to have all the answers, somebody who's supposed to make their kids feel safe. And all of that was called into question because I was in a position where for a period of time, providing for my family was a tremendous challenge. And I would not have made it through without the strength and support of my wife. I mean, there were many times where I was like, forget it, I'm going back to being a lawyer, I'll get a job at a corporate law firm, whatever. We gotta take care of business here. And she's like, no, you cannot do that. You have come so far, you cannot retreat. That's a move backwards. The only way out of this is through. And I have your back. And if we have to say goodbye to our home, we're together, we're in love, we're with our kids, it's all gonna be fine. and it's easy to kind of say those things, but to actually live those things and weather that storm is a different matter altogether. And so it was because of her in large part that, you know, I even get to sit here and talk to you today.

It's a pretty powerful woman.

Yeah.

It's inspiring. We talk a lot about exercise, meditation, and diet, both of us, the guests we have on. If someone is looking to improve their life and transform their life, and they wanted to get started with one aspect, diet, nutrition, physical exercise, and meditation. Which one do you think should be, obviously all of them are equally important, but if they could only start with one for whatever reason, which one do you think is the most important to start with? Meditation, nutrition, physical activity.

It's hard because they're so intertwined with each other and it's hard to parse one from the other. So, I'm reluctant or reticent to say one versus the other, but if if you're forcing me to do that, I would say focus on your diet first. I think changing your plate and cleaning.

Up.

The vibration of what you're putting into your body is a portal to the soul. And if you are intentional about that.

And.

Really focus on trying to eat real foods as close to their natural state. In my case, I eat a 100% plant-based diet. If you're not ready to take that entire leap, just try to eat mostly fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and beans, things like that. I think that that will be a catalyst for future growth in those other areas. And that was my experience. I wasn't ready to meditate or to return to becoming an athlete or any of those things. I started with changing my relationship with food. And I think when you change that frequency of what you're putting into your body, it impacts you on every level, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, et cetera. And it is a catalyst for progressive growth from there. So I would start with that and the more you kind of refine that, then suddenly you get interested because you suddenly have a higher sense of vitality. You're like, oh, I feel like going out and moving my body. I haven't felt like that way. And so the fitness will naturally follow. And then you're like, wow, my body feels good and I'm taking care of it in this way. How do I tend to my spirit and my emotions and my mind? Well, I guess I'll start exploring the world of meditation.

Yeah, a quest is a long-term mission or goal or pursuit. It does have an end. A quest has a beginning and an end. We're all on a long journey. We're all doing lots of different stuff, but a quest is something that does have a destination in mind. Even though it has a destination in mind, it is very much about the process. There's lots of incremental steps along the way. You don't usually begin a quest one day and then finish it the next day. There's usually some amount of sacrifice or challenge in it. There's an element of risk to it. And then usually what happens is, more often than not, the quester or the person pursuing the quest has changed. in some fashion along the way. You're usually not the same person at the end as you were in the beginning.

Interesting. Okay, so there's some type of transformation.

Yeah, and sometimes you know what that transformation might be in the beginning, and other times you don't. And that's part of embracing the uncertainty of a quest, or even if some of the listeners don't relate to the word quest, I do believe that all of us can embrace this value of adventure and maybe creating some structure around that value of adventure.

Got you, okay. So, you know, some might say, well, just traveling to all these different countries, it sounds just like a hobby, something you like to do. But there's a distinction between, difference between.

Hobby and quest, right? Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, I think like a hobby, yeah, something you like to do. I mean, you like to travel. I mean, for me, maybe travel was initially a hobby. It was something I liked to do. But then I kind of created that focus or that structure around it. Again, it's not something that everyone can relate to, which is why, like for the book and for the study, I didn't want to just look at travel quests. and that is my inclination since I'm a traveler. I naturally gravitate towards stories of there's a guy who walked across America over seven and a half months. There was a young woman who sailed around the world and circumnavigated the globe in a small sailboat, and she was the youngest person to ever do that. So I tend to like things like that, but I also wanted to focus on lots of different things. So there's some humanitarian quests. There's some academic. quest, some quests in the arts, you know, people just kind of pursuing something. I guess it's kind of pursuing something to the exclusion of everything else, you know, or maybe not everything else, but you are making trade-offs and choices, you know, to pursue that dream, you know, you are saying no to some things in order to pursue this thing.

Yeah, there's a sacrifice. Yeah, definitely. There's a sacrifice. Yeah, you know, I read the story about the man who runs over 250 marathons. I was just like, I can't, I.

Haven'T run one, you know, it's like incredible. I know, I can't even, I can't relate to that either. You know, I have run one marathon, but like, yeah, that's totally different than 250. So it's kind of interesting because I had a lot of stories in the, like that in the first draft of the book, and we did keep many of them. But I got some feedback from my editor and he said like, that, he's like, most people are not going to be able to, to relate to this at all. Like, you know, they're going to read the story of the dude who ran 250 marathons and gonna be like, that's awesome. Like, good for that dude. I could never do that. Right, exactly. And so I tried as well to say like, hey, here, most of these stories are actually ordinary people. who have just chosen to do something remarkable. Like they have been courageous, they have been brave, but they're doing something that you could do too. And the central message of the book and the whole message I'm trying to put forward is not just a sociological study. I'm trying to actually say like a quest can improve your life. A quest can bring purpose and meaning to your life too.

So we're always told to think outside the box or hear this, think outside the box, but you talk about getting in the box idea. Can you talk about what get in the box ideas.

Yeah, getting in the box is about restricting your creativity and restricting your ideas because we all have so many ideas and sometimes that leads to stagnation or to not doing anything.

And- Too many options means no decisions.

Yeah, exactly. And so I guess for me, part of what's helped in the creative process in general, whether it's writing books or something like a quest is to restrict those options. and to kind of, you know, paint some corners around myself and say, okay, here, here is the box, right? Like, everybody's always saying, as you mentioned, like, get out of the box, you know, blah, blah, blah. But for the quest, it's helpful to have these parameters. Here's what a country is, you know, I get questions about this, too. Like, how many countries are there? I'm like, well, I use the UN list, you know, I use the list of United Nations member states. There are other lists out there. There are other places, other geographical places, which are kind of debatable and like, it's this geopolitical conflict over whether they are a country or not. that's totally fine, but I feel like you need to have a box, you need to have a parameter. So for me, like that's the parameter I chose. And I feel like that's just helpful in life is to say, like, here are the guidelines or the rules in which I'm going to live my life or pursue this project. And I'm the one who's making those, right? That's what you should do for your life. Like no one else is doing this. But I feel like if it's self-applied, then it's good.

You've got to create that, yeah. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this interview with the Minimalist. The power of minimalism. If you want to calm your mind, calm your world around you, then start thinking like a minimalist. See how you can actually clear things out of your space, make intentional purchases. Make intentional ideas. Really get clear on the life you want to live and then be intentional with the ideas, the thoughts, the actions, the feelings and your surroundings. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Be very conscious about this. What I love about this audience is you are all conscious achievers. You're actively seeking ways to improve your life. and the life around you. And this is what I love about this community. I believe it's the best community in the world, the School of Greatness community, because you want to improve things. You don't want to cause chaos and harm on people. You want to improve yourself and the lives of people around you. And that's why I love you all so very much. Whenever I meet you walking down the street or out at a salsa club, a lot of people come up to me at salsa clubs, or if I'm speaking at a conference or anywhere at a restaurant or grocery store, lots of you guys come up to me and you give me a big hug and it always means the world to me. And I love hearing your story about how this podcast has supported you in growing and becoming better and improving your life. So thank you for all that you do. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend, spread it on social media. Be a hero and a champion in someone's life today by sending them this link to help them inspire their life. Lewis.house.com/ 809. I love you all so very much. As Leonardo da Vinci said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Simplify your life. Simplify the ideas in your mind. Silence the stress and the chaos. Be intentional about your surroundings, the people you surround yourself with, and the things you take on every single day. We've we've got a big episode coming up this next Monday. Get ready for a huge episode. If this is your first time here, please subscribe, rate, review, share this with your friends. And as always, I love you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.

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