How to Be a Better Person With Less

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The 30 day less is now challenge challenges people to get rid of 500 items over a month. Ryan: I think letting go doesn't require a trip to the goodwill or a purchase from the container store. He says he discovered minimalism when there were two events in his life that made him question what was driving factors in his life. "It might impact not only what your living room looks like, but it might impact what your career and your relationships look like"

Have you ever noticed that no matter how much shit you buy, it never really does it for you? There’s always that next purchase.

I’m no anti-capitalist, but I don’t think it hurts to acknowledge the lie—or if you want to be generous, misunderstanding—at the core of the enterprise: that somehow acquisition will lead to lasting satisfaction.

This insight about the limits of materialism is what animates my friends Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, who together, are known as the Minimalists. Several years ago, they released a documentary on Netflix. It focuses on how to declutter your stuff and life and how that can lead to decluttering your mind and reduced anxiety.

They actually interviewed me for it—even though I am not really a minimalist—and to this day it is the interview that generated perhaps the most attention of any I have ever done. For years, people stopped me on the street about that one.

Anyway, Joshua and Ryan are now bringing their documentary – aptly entitled “Minimalism” – to YouTube, for free and without commercials. In honor of that, we are reposting an interview I did with them back in 2021.

We hope you enjoy this bonus rebroadcast, and don’t forget to check out the Minimalists podcast, Youtube, website…they’re everywhere. Oh, and just to say that when we originally posted this interview, we paired it with a supplemental conversation with the great meditation teacher Oren Sofer, so if you want to hear the original, you can check that out here.

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