A rich life with less stuff | The Minimalists | TEDxWhitefish

Translator: Bob Prottas Reviewer: Leonardo Silva My name is Ryan Nicodemus, and this is Joshua Fields Millburn. And the 2 of us run a website called: "theminimalists. com", and today we want to talk to you about what it means to be part of a community.

But first, I want to share a story with you about how I became rich. Imagine your life a year from now -- 2 years from now -- 5 years from now. What's it going to look like?

Imagine a life with less: Less stuff, less clutter, less stress, and debt, and discontent. A life with fewer distractions. (Cell phone ringing) Dude, you're joking right now.

Right? Dude, we're trying to give a talk. (Cell phone continues ringing) Sorry about that.

Now, imagine a life with more: More time, more meaningful relationships, more growth and contribution. A life of passion unencumbered by the trappings of the chaotic world around you. Well, what you're imagining is an intentional life.

It's not a perfect life, it's not even an easy life, but a simple one. What you're imagining is a rich life, the kind of rich that has nothing to do with wealth. You know, I used to think rich was earning $50,000 a year.

Then when I started climbing the corporate ladder in my twenties, I quickly begin turning fifty grand. But I didn't feel rich. So I tried to adjust for inflation.

Maybe $75,000 a year was rich. Maybe $90,000. Maybe 6-figures.

Or maybe owning a bunch of stuff, maybe that was rich. Well, whatever rich was, I knew that once I got there I would finally be happy. So as I made more money, I spent more money, all in the pursuit of the American dream, all in the pursuit happiness.

But the closer I got, the further away happiness was. Five years ago my entire life was different from what it is today. Radically different.

I had everything I ever wanted. I had everything I was supposed to have. I had an impressive job title with a respectable corporation, a successful career managing hundreds of employees, I earned a six-figure income, I bought a fancy new car every couple of years, I owned a huge 3-bedroom condo, it even had 2 living rooms.

I have no idea why a single guy needs two living rooms. I was living the American dream. Everyone around me said I was successful.

But I was only ostensibly successful. You see, I also had a bunch of things that were hard to see from the outside. Even though I earned a lot of money, I had heaps of debt.

But chasing the American dream cost me a lot more than money. My life was filled with stress, and anxiety, and discontent. I was miserable.

I may have looked successful, but I certainly didn't feel successful. And it got to a point in my life where I didn't know what was important anymore. But one thing was clear: there was this gaping void in my life.

So I tried to fill that void the same way many people do: with stuff. Lots of stuff. I was filling the void with consumer purchases.

I bought new cars, and electronics, and closets full of expensive clothes. I bought furniture, and expensive home decorations. And I always made sure to have all the latest gadgets.

When I didn't have enough cash in the bank, I paid for expensive meals, rounds of drinks, and frivolous vacations with credit cards. I was spending money faster then I earned it, attempting to buy my way to happiness, and I thought I'd get there one day eventually. I mean happiness had to be somewhere just around the corner, right?

But the stuff didn't fill the void, it widened it. And because I didn't know what was important I continued to fill the void with stuff, going further into debt. Working hard to buy things that weren't making me happy.

This went on for years. A terrible cycle: Lather, rinse, repeat. By my late twenties, my life on the outside looked great.

But on the inside, I was a wreck. I was several years divorced. I was unhealthy.

I was stuck. I drank, a lot. I did drugs, a lot.

I used as many pacifiers as I could. And I continued to work 60, 70, sometimes 80 hours a week, and I forsook some of the most important aspects of my life. I barely ever thought about my health, my relationships, my passions.

And worse of all, I felt stagnant. I certainly wasn't contributing to others, and I wasn't growing. My life lacked meaning, purpose, passion.

If you would have asked me what I was passionate about, I would've looked to you like a deer in headlights, "What am my passionate about? " I had no idea. I was living paycheck to paycheck, living for a paycheck, living for stuff, living for a career that I didn't love.

But I wasn't really living at all. I was depressed. Then, as I was approaching my thirties, I noticed something different about my best friend of twenty-something years.

(Laughter) Josh seemed happy for the first time in a really long time -- like truly happy, ecstatic. But I didn't understand why. We had worked side by side at the same corporation throughout our twenties, both climbing the ranks, and he had been just as miserable as me.

Something had to have changed. To boot, he had just gone through two of the most difficult events of his life. His mother just passed away, and his marriage ended, both in the same month.

He wasn't supposed to be happy. He certainly wasn't supposed to be happier than me. So I did what any good best friend would do.

I took Josh out to lunch, I sat him down, and I asked him a question: "Why the hell are you so happy? " (Laughter) He spent the next 20 minutes telling me about something called minimalism. He talked about how he spent the last few months simplifying his life, getting the clutter out of the way to make room for what was truly important.

And then he introduced me to an entire community of people who had done the same thing. He introduce me to a guy named Colin Wright, a 24-year-old entrepreneur who travels to a new country every four months, carrying with him everything that he owns. Then there was Joshua Becker, a 36-year-old husband, and father of two, with a full time job, and a car, and a house in suburban Vermont.

Then he showed me Courtney Carver, a 40-year-old wife, and mother to a teenage daughter in Salt Lake City. And there was Leo Babauta, a 38-year-old husband, and father of six in San Francisco. Although all these people were living considerably different lives, people from different backgrounds, with children, and families and different work situations, they all shared at least two things in common.

First, they were living deliberate, meaningful lives. They were passionate, and purpose-driven. They seemed much richer than any of the so-called rich guys I worked with in the corporate world.

And second, they attributed their meaningful lives to this thing called "minimalism. " So, me being the problem-solving guy that I am, I decided to become a minimalist right there, on the spot. I looked up at Josh, I excitedly declared: "Alright man, I'm going do it, I'm in.

I'm going to be a minimalist. Now what? " I don't want to spend months paring down my items like he had.

That was great for him, but I wanted faster results. So we came up with this idea of a packing party. We decided to pack all my belongings as if I were moving, and then I would unpack only the items I needed over the next three weeks.

Josh literally helped me box up everything: My clothes, my kitchenware, my towels, my TV's, my electronics, my framed photographs and paintings, my toiletries, even my furniture, everything. After 9 hours, and a couple of pizza deliveries, everything was packed. So there Josh and I were, sitting in my second living room, feeling exhausted, staring at boxes stacked halfway to my 12-foot ceiling.

My condo was empty, and everything smelled like cardboard. Everything I owned, every single thing I had worked hard for over the last decade was sitting there in that room. Just boxes, stacked on top boxes, stacked on top boxes.

Now each box was labeled so I'd know where to go when I needed a particular item. Labels like "living room," "junk drawer #1," "kitchenware," "bedroom closet," "junk drawer #9," so forth and so on. I spent the next 21 days unpacking only the items I needed: My toothbrush, my bed and bed sheets, the furniture I actually used, some kitchenware, a toolset, just the things that added value to my life.

After 3 weeks, 80% of my stuff was still sitting in those boxes, just sitting there, unaccessed. All those things that were supposed to make me happy, they weren't doing their job. So I decided to donate and sell all of it.

And you know what? I started to feel rich for the first time. I started to feel rich once I got everything out of the way.

I made room for everything that remains. A month later, my entire perspective had changed, and then I thought to myself, "Maybe some people might find value in my story -- in our story. " Joshua: So Ryan and I did, I guess what anyone would do, we started a blog.

(Laughter) We called it "the minimalists", and that was 3 years ago. Then something amazing happen, 52 people visit our website in the first month. 52!

I realize that might sound unremarkable at first, but that meant that our story was resonating with dozens of people. And then other amazing things started happening. Fifty two readers turned into 500, 500 became 5,000 and now more than 2 million people a year read our words.

It turns out that, when you add value to people's lives, they're pretty eager to share the message with their friends, and their family, to add value to their lives. Adding value is a basic human instinct. In fact, that's why we're here today.

A couple of years ago, Ryan and I moved from Ohio to Montana. And what we discovered here was an entire community of people, people who weren't traditionally wealthy, but who were rich in a different way. We discovered so many people who were willing to contribute beyond themselves.

And that's what makes a real community: contribution. And so we'd like to encourage everyone to take a look at your day-to-day lives. Take a look at whatever eats up the majority of your time.

Is it checking email, or Facebook, or watching TV? Is shopping online, or at retail stores? Is it working hard for a paycheck to buy stuff you don't need, things that won't make you happy?

Now it's not that we think that there's anything inherently wrong with material possessions, or working a nine-to-five -- there's not. We all need some stuff. We all have to pay the bills, right?

It's just that, when we put those things first, we tend to lose sight of our real priorities. We lose sight of life's purpose. And so maybe getting some of the excess stuff out of the way, clearing the clutter from our lives, can help us all focus on, well, everything that remains, things like health, relationships, growth, contribution, community.

Thank you.