Every little thing you think that you need Every little thing you think that you need, every little thing that's just feeding your greed, oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.
You're listening to the Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and TK Coleman, recorded live at Earthing Studios in sunny California.
Yes, thank you, Malabama.
Hello, everybody. Guess who's with us in the studio today?
My best friend, the lead guitarist of The Minimalists, Ryan Nicodemus, ladies and gentlemen.
Yes! That was my solo.
You know, it usually feels like an acoustic show when you're not here, but it's good to have the full band back together.
I was practicing that for a week.
Because you look in the mirror when you practice?
Yeah, of course. We got A .B.
in the studio, Savvy D on the board. And actually, Malabama is not here with us today.
She's in Chicago at a wedding, but she'll be back next week.
Buell is on the couch as well.
She designed our beautiful studio space.
So we have a guest audience of one coming up on this free public minimal episode.
A caller has a question about whether artificial intelligence is a minimalist tool or something that is bad for humanity.
And then we've got a lightning round question about our favorite minimalist tools.
And that's followed by our right here, right now segment and a listener tip.
You can check out the Maximal Edition of episode 468.
That's the full two -hour episode where we answer three times as many questions that we dive deep into several simple living segments.
That private podcast is out right now.
Patreon .com slash The Minimalists.
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Let's start with the callers.
If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you.
Our phone number is 406 -219 -7839 or email a voice recording straight from your phone to podcasts at TheMinimalists .com.
Our first question today is from Sarah in the UK.
This is Sarah, one of your patreon subscribers.
I'm really curious about your take on AI and how that may overlap with minimalism and the way that we choose to organize our lives and how we interact with the world around us.
There's some great tools emerging that can really help you get into depth on topics, like text to speech tools that can help us really dig and read more or that can help us find more papers about something we're researching.
But I'm also seeing a lots of tools that are really keeping us at the shallow end of what we're looking at, particularly things that are summarizing emails for people.
And I can already see ways that the workplace places getting shallower and shallower very much reminded me of Cal Neepo's book.
Um, and just really curious as to what, um, thoughts from each of you are as to how that's going to impact you going forward. Thanks so much. TK.
I'd love to start with you because we're talking about sort of two sides.
What are, what's AI going to be useful for as a tool?
Is it a minimalist tool potentially?
Does it simplify our lives in some way?
And when I'm talking about minimalist tools, that's really what we're talking about here is what tools can simplify our life so we can live better with less.
And so let's start with the positives.
Let's talk about how artificial intelligence might be the best tool for minimalist. Yeah, well the first positive is to say, I don't know.
I think we need to reclaim, I don't know, as a positive thing to say, when something new emerges to say, I don't know where this is going.
I don't know what's going to happen next.
That's not a statement that we need to be afraid of.
That's not a statement that says, I'm afraid.
That's not a statement that says, I'm copping out.
We don't need to make up an answer in order to have a basis for some kind of determined optimism.
Cause determined optimism isn't the belief that things are going to be okay because of magic.
it's, hey, no matter what occurs, I'm going to do the best that I can to figure out how to relate to the tools and the possibilities that emerge in a way that is healthy and in a way that draws from my creativity.
So that's the first thing, I don't know.
Second thing is, no matter what the tool is, you can be sure that there are gonna be some people that use it in a way that's disappointing to you.
And paradoxically, it might be those disappointing uses that in many ways drive the development of the technology and make it possible for you to do the important things that you want to do.
So many awesome tools that we have are the result of people playing around with things, experimenting with things that we ourselves wouldn't initiate or endorse or even care about.
So you never want to judge a tool by its potential for abuse because everything that you will ever love or create can and will be used by someone for purposes that are disappointing than you.
One of the things I see when I look at AI is I think about the calculator and I think about the automobile.
Tools that can do things better than we can do them.
If you can run really fast the automobile can run faster than you.
If you can calculate really fast, the calculator can do it faster than you.
And you can look at it as competition because it does what you are already doing in a way that's just superior.
But you can also look at it as an amplifier of human creativity and say, here's something that not only does what I already do better, but it gives me the power to do things that I have not yet considered.
So the first benefit of new technologies is that they challenge us to question our assumptions.
They disrupt our comfort.
And as we get older, this is a really easy thing for us to happen.
We get comfortable knowing how to walk into a room, knowing our way around things, is mastering our craft, having a nice solid sense of identity.
We're not like children anymore, where we're just open to everything and we want to try everything.
We have concrete knowledge about what we do and don't like and new technologies disrupt that and say, I'm going to challenge you to evolve and ask yourself, what are you capable of?
That has never been compelled by previous necessity or interest, and that's the first benefit of these tools.
We have to redefine ourselves.
I think Ryan, what comes to my mind is that in the wrong hands, any tool can become a weapon.
But I want to stick with AI as a tool because you seem to be an AI optimist. I mean, I just say I'm an optimist in general but yeah, AI if specifically, I'm very optimist about that.
But on your business card, you should play AI optimist. I think I'm probably a little bit more optimist about AI than most other things, because I see just the amazing potential in it.
Now, what Sarah's talked about was, some of these things are in the shallow end and I would agree that a lot of these things in the shallow end AI right now.
Like chat GPT is really useful for really simple contracts.
In fact, if I need a contract the first place I will go is to chat GPT.
I'll still give it to my attorney to look at but it saves him 90 % of the work.
And then thus it saves us like 50 % of the money or maybe even more.
And so it is more efficient there.
And so there's nothing wrong with handling some of the shallow end things.
I think TK is right.
we get in this pattern of, this is the way I've always done contracts.
This is the way I've always done emails.
This is the way that I've always read stories or written stories.
This is the way I've always communicated, but now this is a new way for us to communicate, but it's also a new tool that as TK said, I don't know, we're a bit uncertain.
Yeah, I mean, I think any new tool, especially a major tool like this, TK, Rob, the calculator and the automobile.
I think, of course, like in the beginning, Anyone who's in like the inferior technology to this newer technology, AI is a little different cause it's like it almost can do anything.
You know, of course we're gonna get scared.
But I mean, going kind of back to what TK was saying, just relying on oneself, it doesn't mean like relying on yourself to do everything.
But it does mean relying on yourself and believing that no matter what happens, you can pivot.
And TK believing in myself is magic, dude, I would say that.
And I do believe in myself though.
So it's like if I am a customer service representative, we had someone at our Sunday symposium, it was like, Oh, they're gonna take over my job.
You know, man, what's that job anyway, dude.
Did you like your customer service job, Milburn?
I mean, there are some people who do though.
No. It is true, and that is kind of where I'm going with it in the sense of like someone who is worried about losing their job, they're worried about it because of the income is potential or probably probably every single person because they really love the job, you know, and they don't want to lose it.
Or it's because they don't want to lose it because they don't know what they're going to do afterwards.
And that's I think where the fear really kicks in is when we know the world's changing.
We don't know how we're going to change with it.
Yeah. And that's the uncertainty side of I don't know.
I don't know what this is going to do for my current situation.
The one thing that we're certain of is something's going to change.
Even if your job doesn't end, the parameters of your job are going to change when you've introduced artificial intelligence into the picture.
I think about any technological advance that woman who asked that event at Sunday or that question at our Sunday symposium event.
She was talking about the how scared she was for the change and I talked to her about when Ryan and I worked in Cincinnati 100 years before that it was the horse and buggy capital of the world.
All of the best horse and buggies were made there.
And of course, this guy named Henry Ford came along and he had this thing called the automobile.
And it was sort of dismissed at first, like, ah, who's going to want that?
That's going to kill a bunch of people?
No, that's not really going to catch on. And what happened is the horse and buggy folks kept making horse and buggies and better horse and buggies.
And eventually they fell behind because the automobile was popularized and a lot of people found value in it and they found less value in the horse and buggy.
Yeah. Yeah. That's absolutely right.
And, you know, really quickly, Ryan and I agree with you that believing in yourself is magic, and I think that's an expression of determined optimism, because you're locating the magic inside yourself, rather than outside of yourself.
And that's the distinguishing feature of determined optimism.
It's not about saying, things are going to get better because of some magic outside there.
It's going to get better because of the magic of how I am free to react and respond to it.
You know, So when it comes to creating value, I think one of the great questions that AI forces us to ask ourselves is, how can I make myself useful to the world?
And I think that's a great question to this generation because economically that is how we make a living by figuring out how we can take our potential, harness it in such a way so that we can create value and solve problems for others.
And when too much of our conversation around making a living centers around, how can I do what feels good to me?
how can I do what I love?
It's possible to get a little self centered that we forget about that other factor, no matter how much you love making music, no matter how much you love writing, no matter how much you love gardening at some point, if you wanna make a living, you have to think about somebody else.
And you've got to think about what matters to them.
And if you're never willing to play the game of thinking about value in terms of what someone else wants in a way that is ideally compatible with what I want, but in a way that they are free to define.
That challenges you in a way that produces maturity and wisdom and empathy.
And so AI competes with us in a way that makes us afraid that we're gonna have to rethink what makes us valuable.
And that is scary, but that is a character building journey for humanity because we all have things that we love.
And you know what? I don't know, this is pure speculation, but it could be possible that AI makes it extremely difficult to make money writing books in the future.
To make a living doing research in the future.
To make a living doing anything involving like radio or commentary or using your voice in the future.
Music. Music. These are all threatening to me.
I don't know what I'm doing in a world like that.
The reason why he's listing out fear here fellas.
I'm scared of a lot of things that...
Well, hold on. I got things I want to list. Hold on wait, let me give you more to be afraid of.
But I mean, this is what we do though man.
We sit here and we stack fears, man.
But I'm stacking the fears.
So you can beat them down.
Not so that we can end the conversation there.
No, no, absolutely not.
And say these fears defy me.
But I'm stacking the fears to say, look, the threat is real, but here's why it's good for us to face these challenges.
Because it brings me to a place where I can no longer be comfortable saying, I figured out my role and I get to do what I love, or I get to do what I'm comfortable doing.
And I get to make a living.
And it puts me back into the beginner's mind of saying, oh, in a world where so many of the things I have found to make myself useful are now done in a superior manner by AI, I've got to rethink this question of how can I make a difference in other people's lives.
And that's good for me, even though it's incredibly difficult.
I think what I'm saying about the stacking fears is like, really, it's about you could just not be afraid and you can just start there and just risk it.
And I'm telling you, yes, like sometimes there's going to be something That is gonna get in your way it doesn't mean don't be afraid and then don't do anything but it's like I Could go down the stairs right here and be afraid of like oh God, I could grab the railing I don't fall down the stairs I want to you know There might be someone come around the corner and like it takes me 20 minutes to get down the stairs right like something wrong with That but that fear is really slowing me down and I think often it's like there are fears We we have to like hit head -on But then there are times where we
drum them up and we start stacking them And you always find fears of stack.
And I'm just, you know, this is a total tangent.
This has nothing to do with your comment, TK.
It's more about like, anyone listening to this if you're scared of anything, just trying to be scared, seriously.
Just try to be like, you know, I ain't going to worry about that today and I'm going to, I'm going to work.
I'm going to worry about, I'm not going to worry about my job with AI.
And I'm going to worry about how I'm going to add value because the tool itself is not going to, it's not going to do anything than offer you something to help you do your life better or different or whatever it is.
So, as we always say, the tool is as useful as the user.
So that's what I mean, by sitting around it being scared.
It's like, maybe it's a signifier, oh, you know, I might have to look for a different job.
Great, then go look for a different job.
But if we sit around and we're like, oh my God, I'm gonna lose my job because of AI.
I'm gonna lose my job because of AI.
And then get an email, hey, AI took over your job.
We're sorry, now we're sitting on, oh my God, I lost my job because of AI.
And now we just got like this whole narrative that we're wrapped up in.
So, Sarah here. I love her optimistic approach to it.
If you just want to, you know, get over your fear with AI, just ask yourself, what would Sarah do?
I think what you're illustrating here is the difference between concern and fear.
And we can be concerned about something and say, oh yeah, you know what, this is going to change.
And I can plan for that without worrying about it, without praying for something bad to happen in the future.
But I would like to talk about what some of the upsides of AI that you see right now are because she brings up a good point.
I thought that AI was going to, like, help us with all the menial tasks and get all that stuff off the table.
But really it's mostly been used for art, which I didn't expect at all, AI art, AI music, AI writing.
There's been some really good art that has come out of it.
Absolutely. And it's almost like the artists who are learning how to integrate with AI, these are the future artists.
right the ones who were bitching and complaining about AI doing their job they will fall by the wayside so let's talk about what some of the upsides of artificial intelligence might be TK hmm well one of the upsides is building on the foundation of how does this technology extend or amplify my ability to do already existing things and how does it give me the opportunity to do new things I haven't done is by allowing something else to do things that it does better than me.
I now free up my energy and time to do those things that I actually have the capacity to make history doing.
I actually have the capacity to be unique doing.
One of the things that kind of compromises everyone's capacity for genius is that as a necessity, we have to do all sorts of things that were very replaceable on, and anybody could do them, but we just don't have the labor force to do them for us.
And so every one of us has to spend a whole lot of time in our day doing all sorts of things that, you know, are you uniquely good at getting the mail out of the mailbox?
Are you uniquely good at acknowledging an email and saying received?
Are you the best in the world at creating invoices?
Are you just the most amazing person at downloading a PDF file?
No. And you're never gonna be the most amazing person in the world at that.
You're just doing redundant activities that anybody can do.
Once you have the capacity to do those things at scale in a lightning fast way, what happens with your time?
What happens with your mind?
The other side of this fear that this is going to take away my job is this is going to do something that creates value for me and others without requiring my time.
And as a result, it's going to free me up to enjoy more of my time and to figure out something that is actually necessary.
And so I look at taking away our jobs in some ways, it's kind of like, oh that's something that I don't have to do anymore.
Imagine if we push that all the way to the extreme, let's say AI did all the jobs.
Isn't that the goal?
Isn't the goal to get to the place where our human labor is no longer necessary?
Well, what am I gonna do?
I used to build houses, but AI bills houses.
Okay, well I used to clean my house, but AI cleans it for me, okay.
I used to have to prepare my food, but AI prepares it for me.
Okay, are you saying we're moving towards a world where your labor is no longer necessary for all the things that you enjoy about life?
And now your labor is moving in the direction of you're just doing stuff because you enjoy it?
Because it's a creative expression of you, but no one actually needs you to do that?
That's freedom. Yeah, amen, man.
It just made me think no one's sitting around being like, man, I really miss the printing press.
I really miss how slow it took to type that newspaper.
But there were jobs lost when that was gone and they found other jobs.
That's really I think what it comes down to.
I think about the economical possibilities, not fears, but possibilities.
If there are no jobs to be had, capitalism, little and crony capitalism doesn't work anymore.
So people are scared about like what happens if we lose our jobs in this economical system.
Well it ain't gonna work, that's true, but something else will replace it and I am optimistic that we're all smart enough and brilliant enough and I mean at least in this room we love each other enough there's a couple people outside this room I love doom and we'll figure it out dude you know but it's like AI is is here it's coming you know it's like yeah I'm no reason to be scared of it.
But how will I make money if it takes my job what do you need the money for?
Right so that I can buy all these beautiful things that I want.
And but but these things are being created really fast and really cheap by this AI so I don't really need the money as much anymore.
I mean, Man, we are at a position now where like you can make that movie without having to know how to do graphic design, without having to know a cinematographer.
I see this in so many ways as being the democratization of creativity, where you can actually implement and execute your creative ideas and your creative impulses without having to have a Rolodex of a thousand people who wouldn't talk to you because because you're not rich enough, powerful enough, or geographically well positioned enough.
That is so fascinating.
Is there a movie or - Until it destroys us like iRobot.
No, I love this dude.
No, dude. I know there's just got to be movie like this.
So you got Elon Musk who just like had the robots coming out, putting AI on there.
I mean, if we're gonna work on an economical system, which again, I don't think it will work, but a cool movie idea is like, yeah, all the jobs were replaced by these robots.
You own the robot and that's who makes your money, that's who works for you.
That's what does everything for you.
If this movie hasn't been made, make it T head.
Yeah, make it happen.
Well, I can make it happen, right?
Oh yeah. All right.
I'll just write it tonight.
You don't even have to write it.
But you can be the one to tell it.
I said that with air quotes.
Well, what I will say to wrap up this question is that I think in a weird world where that happens, where AI takes over all of the labor, it in a way makes real art, I'll just call it that.
Real art, art by real artists like Biola, on the couch here, in a way, it can make that more valuable.
and we see that all the time.
We know that the big corporations sell the most product, but we often want to reconnect with our things because they're artisanal.
They're made by an artisan, and they handcrafted the thing.
And I think that will be more valuable than ever.
Dude, that's genius man.
No, because I'm saying, the artists who integrate with AI are going to produce some amazing art, but it's almost like the ones who do the real art.
It is going to be an artisanal thing.
and it will be like, yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
Well, I'm going to talk to you guys about some more minimalist tools.
What I'm hearing from both of you here is that AI has the potential to simplify our lives and therefore it can be a minimalist tool in the right hands.
Speaking of minimalist tools, Sarah, I'd love to send you a copy of the minimalist rule book, 16 rules for living with less.
Ryan and I wrote this a few years ago as some of our favorite tools we use to simplify our life, like the seasonality rule or the just -in -case rule or the wait for it rule.
And you can download it for free over at TheMinimalists .com on the resources page, just click resources there at the top.
We have a bunch of free resources you can download, including the minimalist rule book.
If you want the audio book version, Ryan and I read it together and we recorded like a little mini podcast about each rule in that audio book.
You can find that over there at TheMinimalists .com on the resources page.
Before we get back to our callers, Ryan, what time is it?
It's time for the lightning round we answer the Patreon Community Chat's question of the week.
Yo, Malabam, I'm coming back.
I'm coming for your job!
This is actually artificial intelligence, Ryan.
He's not even in the studio with us today.
Josh Mulder and his lying.
See? I am not artificial intelligence.
Now, during the lightning round, as you know, we each have 60 seconds to answer your question with a short, shareable, minimal maxim.
You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes that's theminimalists .com slash podcast and every Minimal Maxim ever at minimalmaxims .com, we'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free.
If you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists .email, we'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity.
All right, the question of the week this week is, what's your favorite minimalist tool and how have you used it to live more with less?" Now Ryan, TK, before we get to our pithy answers, let's hear how some of our listeners answered this question.
Brian said, I don't know if this week's question was asking about physical tools or not, but binder clips immediately come to my head.
I think he's right about that.
They're so versatile, in my classroom I use them to bundle student art projects together, hang art projects up on display.
And they're even more reliable as chip clips than actual chip clips.
Oh my God, he's right.
Patent pending. Yes.
I love that. You need to find out who his binder dealer is.
I bet he gets all the awesome, amazing binder clips.
Quick, Alyssa, make sure you buy a bunch of binder clips for the studio.
I don't know how we're going to use them, but they sound like a great new tool.
That's really cool though.
I love of that answer.
Laura said, my best tool is the rule of if something is not a hell yes, I'm not taking it.
She's talking about freebies here.
It allows me to say no to a lot of freebies when purchasing clothes and shoes and accessories.
Thanks to that rule, I can stroll around stores with a sentiment of lateness.
I think there's something fascinating about being able to go into a store and not need the things that often trigger our impulse.
And one of this this rule in particular, this tool that, that Laura has here is Derek Sivers.
Hell yeah or no. And if you can look at an item, even a freebie because ah, if it's free, I might as well take it Ryan.
And we did a whole episode about freebies.
I'm sure you remember, and letting go of the need to accept things just because they're free is incredibly freeing.
Jessica had this to say, she said, My favorite minimalist tool is my calendar.
The empty spaces remind me that I've carved out time for myself and my family.
And so there's like almost like this photo negative side of things.
The busy -ness can feel overwhelming.
We can use our calendar to manage the busy -ness, but sometimes our tools, we use them to bludgeon ourselves.
When Ryan and I both worked in telecom, I remember I got my first Blackberry phone in 2003 and they told me it would save us two hours a day because now I could respond to emails while I'm at a sporting event.
Isn't it funny how like, you say that out loud now and I'm like, how did we ever believe that?
We're saving you two hours a day because we're allowing you to work for two hours extra a day.
It just meant I was allowed to work from a different location.
But what happened is of course, that work then expands into all off -work hours.
I heard this great story of someone recently where their boss told them they weren't allowed to work from home anymore.
Everyone had to come back into the office and you're not allowed to work from home, and it was a totally remote IT job.
This person he could have certainly done it from home, it sounded like.
Right. The boss was just mad.
He had to go into the office, so he punished everybody else.
That's right. And so the worker was like, okay, that's fine.
And but after five, he removed email from his phone, didn't respond to any phone calls, said, well, you told me I'm not allowed to work from home, so I'm no longer going to take you back my free time.
But my calendar is spacious now in the evenings because I'm not working from home.
Yes, queen. Yaman said...
Our friend Yaman said, the first thing I thought of as a minimalist tool was my Kindle.
It saves me tons of space and it is so simple.
I know TK, you have a Kindle now and you've had to let go of some books recently.
I think we'll talk about this soon.
TK just moved into a 400 square foot apartment minimalist. Weird flex but all right.
So part of that, you had to get rid of some things that you were adding value before, but they would get in the way now.
That's exactly right.
And it's not because I thought it would make me a better person to get rid of them, it's just the nature of space is such that you got to think about how much room you have. And you know, the math just doesn't math sometimes.
And so you have to let go.
And so this is a minimalist tool that is near and dear to my heart because it doesn't just allow you to have more books without all of the physical clutter.
But it also allows you to take advantage of resources that simply aren't available in paperback.
there are a lot of really great books, really great articles, really great journal entries that you can't find the paperback or hardcover for.
And it also makes it easier to share a lot of these things as well.
And a lot of books that are in the creative commons, you got books that are hundreds of years old that you can download for free.
You couldn't get a print version for free because it costs money to print a book.
But the PDF or Kindle file, you can download for free.
And it doesn't have to be a Kindle.
It can be any other e -reader where you have the ability to download some of these free books or even borrow free books from your library on your Kindle as well.
You can read dozens of other listener responses in the Patreon community chat, how about you listeners?
What's your favorite minimalist tool and how have you used it to live more with less?
Let us know in the comments.
Okay, Ryan, give me something pithy.
What's your pithy answer here?
What's your favorite minimalist tool and how have you used it to live more with less?
minimalism is a skill that gives us the ability to walk away so I mean I guess it's a skill more than anything I mean I don't know if you can call that a tool but the ability to walk away from anything is pretty awesome and it's not because I don't care about things it's actually because I care so deeply about things it's like I can look at the things I don't really care that deeply about and walk away from the much easier because I've developed this muscle to really filter through all those things yeah and the willingness to walk away doesn't mean that you have to walk away from a thing.
It means I'm here not out of obligation, but I'm here because this is how I want to spend my time.
My most precious resource.
Yeah. I'll give you just an example of like what I'm willing to walk away from.
So I'm like working on this book right now.
And I've tried to walk away from this thing a couple of times, not in the sense of like trying to because I don't want to do it.
It's almost like the pressure of like feeling of like having to do it every single day.
And if I'm not working on it on a certain day, and like, it's just creating a lot of anxiety at times, right?
So I do this experiment.
I'm like, cool. I'll just walk away from this thing.
I have no problem walking away from it.
And it's like, I can't, like I care so deeply about what I'm trying to do here.
It's just like one of those things that like, I have chosen, this is the boulder I'm carrying now, set it down some days.
And I've learned how to do that, but that's what I'm saying.
It's not about like me being like, you know, I'll screw this book.
I'll do what I want.
I'm Ryan Nicodemus.
I did it at 25 years old, but you know 43.
I'm like, screw this book, I'll walk away, I'll do what I want.
And then, like I do that and it doesn't feel very empowering because I'm not doing what I actually want to do.
Right, you're illustrating the difference between the willingness to walk away and running away from something because you're afraid of it.
Give me something pithy, TK.
None doing paves the way for wise doing.
I find whenever I'm stressed, whenever I'm overburdened, whenever I can't figure out what to do, confused, overwhelmed, whatever it may be, it never fails when I walk away and take a walk, I get exactly what I need.
But it requires me to exercise the courage to do something in that moment of overwhelm that feels so irresponsible.
You mean everybody's stressed.
You mean there are problems that need to be solved.
You mean there are urgencies that need to be attended to and you're just gonna go for a walk.
And when you go for a walk, You can't make any promises like but if I go on this walk I'll figure out how to make $30 ,000 in the next 30 minutes You can't make promises like that because if you know what's gonna happen next it's not a discovery You have to open yourself up to discovery and you get what you need and it works But you can never know what that is ahead of time.
That's my favorite minimalist tool taking a walk yeah, you know what's funny about that is if it was a a a manual and not a discovery, then you would already know what you're getting out of it.
But the beauty of discovery is the curiosity and the not knowing.
That not knowing is what makes you feel alive.
That sense of uncertainty, which we often run from, is the very thing that makes us wake up and get out of bed and do what we want to do.
My pithy answer is this, my favorite minimalist tool is Ryan Nicodemus.
That's what I was waiting to hear.
I was totally gonna make a joke about that.
I'm like, no, dude, like don't derail things, but here we are.
He did it for me. No, I want to get practical for a moment, so I don't have a pithy answer for you, but I have a few physical goods that are great minimalist tools for me.
But I say for me as a caveat, because they may be total clutter for you.
They could simply get in the way.
I've got one of them right here.
As you know, Ryan, I've had a lot of shoulder pain recently.
and you have too, you just had shoulder surgery, which we're gonna talk about on page three here, but this thing I have here in my hand is called a soback, like PSO, the P silent like Pterodactyl.
Oh, cool. Yeah, like so as muscle.
So the so back thing is, it was so hard for me to use because my whole paraspinal muscle chain was so, so tight that I had to use it very gently at first, but 70 % of my shoulder pain is gone.
And I attribute that to this.
And I've also done some physical therapy through PRI which is the Postural Restoration Institute.
Both of those are tools.
So tools don't have to be a physical tool.
It could be someone teaching you, training you, showing you, instructing you of the mechanics to improve the things that you want to improve.
Of course there are minimalist tools like the iPhone or a smartphone in general.
And there's, that's a double -sided, well it's a double -sided problem really.
Because on one side it's like, wow, this is the best thing.
It does allow me to respond to people and connect with people.
It allows me to organize my life in a way that would have been impossible 20 years ago, but it also allows me to batter myself with distractions.
And so if I'm not using it intentionally, it's still a tool.
It's a tool that I'm using that gets in the way.
It's like, imagine if you had a giant toolbox I rolled in here and started dumping all the tools onto the floor.
They technically be tools, but they'd really be clutter that we'd be tripping on and stubbing our toes.
And that's kind of what's happening with us with many of our things is we pretend their tools or maybe they were useful once upon a time or I saw it be useful for someone else, but it's no longer useful for me.
So it's clutter, it's just getting in the way.
Another simple tool for me is we cook with one stainless steel pan at home regularly every day, couple of meals a day, that same stainless steel pan.
And it's incredibly simple, but I don't need all of these additional kitchen accoutrements in order to simplify.
I mean, quite often cooking seems overwhelming because of all of the accessories and the cleaning and all of the aftercare that happens when you're done cooking, but if you just have one simple pan that you need to clean at the end of it it's way less daunting.
All throughout the house, I have like these grounding mats were seated on one right now Now, Ryan's standing on one, TK's standing on one, that's been a great minimalist tool for me as well.
It keeps me grounded even when I'm indoors.
And finally, a surprising one for me that was a minimalist tool was, look at all the papers we have in front of us.
This wouldn't seem like we would, this would be a minimalist tool, but we have a printer downstairs, a really simple HP printer that costs next to nothing.
But why do we do that?
Because of what I talked about earlier, sometimes those screens are really useful.
They're really helpful, but if we're recording an episode together and we have screens in front of us I've found that they become a smoke screen for the conversation And so this tool isn't surprising minimalist tool we have a printer downstairs and we print out our production notes beforehand and Then we have them here in front of us, so we don't we're not distracted by those glowing screens.
How about you TK? What's one?
physical good, that is a minimalist tool for you.
Man, it's my Slim Coffee Mug.
It's portable, it's sleek, it fits anywhere, I can take it anywhere I want.
And it allows me to get rid of coffee mugs, it allows me to keep it simple.
I can drink tea out of this, coffee out of this, cold water out of this, keeps things at its temperature, but it just simplifies my life because I only need one cup.
It's easy to clean out, easy to carry around, so no matter what I'm drinking, when I'm drinking, where I'm drinking, I got one cup and that's just a lot less to do.
I used to have, this is coming from a person that accepted every coffee mug gift. I love the aesthetics of coffee mugs.
And I used to have about like 15 coffee mugs.
And it's just so nice to not have that.
Well, plus you don't have all the toxic junk from the throwaway cups that are going into your tea or coffee and also it's not producing all that waste, which may have not been the main reason you did that but one of the beautiful byproducts of minimalism in general is that when we simplify our lives, when we purchase less, when we consume less, we produce less waste.
And so that's a beautiful byproduct of that.
I've got something similar here, my fellow mug, although it needs to be replaced soon.
It's really dinged up.
It looks like I dropped it off of the Eiffel Tower or something, but I use this every day, all day.
I keep my coffee in there and I use it in the mornings.
I use it in the afternoons, I drink my coffee in the evenings still.
Don't judge me, Nicodemus.
No, I just want to make a joke about the Eiffel Tower being in Ohi and...
I didn't realize it was there.
It's a raffle cup. Oh, okay, that makes sense.
One tenth of the scale.
No, it's 10 times this big.
Okay, that makes sense.
How about you, Nicodemus, what's a minimalist tool that you benefit from?
My Fanny pack, dude.
I love, A, they're in style.
Uh -huh. I cannot believe they're in style.
I literally, our friend, he makes them...
He's at the farmer's market in Missoula, and I'm like, I really need something.
And I'm like, this was a while ago before I got my shorter surgery, but I'm really glad I got it now, cause I literally have one pocket I can get into on the right -hand side.
Like that's where my back pocket is, that's where my other pocket is and it's my right shoulder that I got surgery on.
So it's been really handy like bringing that around, being able to carry stuff with me.
Um, right, it just causes my purse, you know, which is fine.
But I was like sitting there looking at him.
I swear to God when I was buying this thing, I'm like, dude, are you sure this is cool?
And he's like, yeah, I promised they are.
I'm like, you're selling them though.
I'm like, are you sure I mean he's like 20 something?
I'm like, are you sure you kids are wearing these?
Sure But no, it's been great man, it's cool.
Well, and it's like he literally like hand stitches everything.
It's pretty cool, man So what's nice about that you don't have to keep a bunch of stuff in your pockets Don't have to keep any bunch of stuff in my pockets I can have my like wallet and phone with me Uh -huh, rather than like having just a big ball G left hand pocket and you making you know Dumb jokes about me being happy to see or not Hey, those jokes are not dumb.
I'm so sorry. Those stupid jokes.
Thank you. You're welcome.
All right. We're getting toward the end of page one.
On page two, Ryan, we had a question.
Someone called in and asked about your move to Missoula.
We're going to talk about that and a bunch more.
We have a plethora of callers to talk to, but first real quick for right here right now, here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist. Actually, I have three things for you.
One is this is the 10th anniversary of our book, Everything That Remains.
Ryan and I, we moved to a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Montana.
There was one traffic light in 3 ,400 square miles.
The day we arrived was October 3rd and it was the middle of a blizzard. And all you had time to do was write.
And we wrote this book called Everything That Remains.
We just had the 10th anniversary edition that was out earlier this year while we were on tour.
We did the Everything Tour.
And now there is the final version of that.
If you want to check out the beautiful cover, it's my favorite cover we've done for this book yet.
And we've done several covers.
It's so great, yeah.
Joshua Weaver did the photo for it.
It looked like we were, it wasn't like Abercrombie and Fitch models because we couldn't pull that off.
It was more like a LL Bean ad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, LL Bean.
Yeah, we were out in the mountains in Montana and Joshua Weaver just got this great photo of us.
And then Dave over at spire design, this beautiful new cover.
We'll put a link to that in the show notes.
You could find it at the minimalists .com.
It's called everything that remains.
It's the final ETR cover.
Also it's the 10th anniversary.
I forgot to mention this.
Our first TEDx talk was 10 years ago, Nickodemus.
And Wayfish. Almost 11 years ago now.
Now, how much we've grown.
We're taller, better.
You're more handsome somehow.
It was called a rich life with less.
And it was really the first thing that we created that reached a large audience of people, and millions of people saw this TEDx talk that we did.
And then a few years later we were in Fargo and we did another TEDx talk called The Art of Letting Go.
We'll put links to both of those in the show notes.
If you wanna go back and see what the minimalists were talking about 10 years ago, Check out our Ted X talk a rich life with less and then finally You know last week was Nickademus' birthday and next week is TK's birthday.
Oh my goodness We're here to ask you for minimalist birthday gifts for both of them I want to get the P .O.
Box in Montana But no, here's what we're asking for.
We only do this once a year.
You know, hear every podcast you listen to.
It's like, please like and subscribe and ding bells and do all of these other crazy things and share this.
We just want you to ding one bell.
No, I don't need you to ding any bell.
I should have you finished, I'm sorry.
My goodness. We ask this once a year, as a birthday gift. Would you be willing to rate our podcast on Apple podcasts and Spotify?
Do the one on Apple for Nicodemus.
that's the one on Spotify for TK.
If you can go on to both of those platforms, that helps us reach more people.
We have thousands of reviews, but we could really use your review to help push us up in the search recommendations for the Minimalist podcast. We don't ask you this every episode.
We're not telling you to like and subscribe to anything.
Just once a year, would you be willing to give us a five star review on Apple podcasts and on Spotify.
Also Ryan needs a new bike.
It's what else you got for us.
Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.
Hello minimalists. My name is Ryan.
I'm originally from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and I want to share my story and extend my thanks.
A little over six months ago I hit a sort of quarter life crisis.
I felt like my career was at a standstill and I wasn't able to spend enough time and energy doing the things that I loved.
When I got out of grad school, full -time positions were hard to come by on my field, so I took on per DMGIGS gain experience and get by.
As time went on, I felt burnout from the stress of juggling so many different jobs, not being able to make loan payments, and constantly applying to full -time positions with no resolution.
I am really passionate about what I do for work, but this job market it was really testing my limits.
After two years of waiting for a better job, I decided to pivot and pursue travel positions in my field.
This will give me the opportunity to live, work, and relax in places I've wanted to travel to for a long time.
As I was planning to basically live out of my car for the next few years, minimalism actually came really naturally.
I had watched your Netflix documentary last year and just finished your book, Everything That Remains.
It was a month -long process, but I was able to jettison about 70 % of my belongings between my apartment and my parent's house.
When I realized I wasn't able to transport my belongings to my car that I was shipping across the country, I focused more on what I realistically could take on the plane.
I recently just got set up with my first assignment on the West Coast and now have a renewed excitement for my career.
I continue to listen weekly on Spotify for additional insights and inspiration.
Thank you for your guidance on this journey to live more with less.
Hey Ryan, thank you so much for that thoughtful comment.
For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode or any other episode, leave a comment on Patreon, or YouTube, or better yet, you can send a voice memo straight from your phone to podcasts at TheMinimalists .com so we can feature your voice on the show.
Alright, that's the first 33 % of episode 468.
We'll see you on Patreon for the full Maximal Edition.
Ryan Nicodemus is here for all of that.
He answered some pretty heartfelt stuff as well.
He's had some difficult things happen in the last couple of weeks.
We talk about that in depth.
We also answer a bunch more of your questions like, what foods do the minimalist grow at their homes?
We actually grow some food at our homes, minimalist. What should I do if the activities I enjoy they require me to accumulate clutter.
Also, is it worth it if it weighs you down?
Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast. Visit Patreon .com slash The Minimalist or click the link down in the description to subscribe and get your personal link so that our weekly maximal episodes play in your favorite podcast app.
You also gain access to all of our podcast archives all the way back to episode 001.
By the way Patreon is now offering free trials.
So if you'd like to test drive our private podcast you can join for seven days for free Check out ryanacademus .com if you want to sign up for his monthly mentoring messages Those are coming back real soon ryanacademus .com.
You can get on the email list over there That is our minimal episode for today big Thanks to earthing studios for the recording space on behalf of Ryan Nickademus Tk Coleman, Alabama Who will be back next week post -production Peter spire Jeff and spire Dave a B on the couch Savvy D on the board, Biola's here, Jordan no more just walked in the door as well.
I didn't mean to make that rhyme but it did.
He just brings it out of me.
MC Milburn here. Alright, if you leave here today with just one message, let it be this.
Love people and use things.
Because the opposite never works.
Thanks for listening, y 'all.
We'll see you next time.
Peace. Every little thing that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed Oh I bet that you'll be fine without it
