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Transcript

My guest today is Stephen Warley.

Feeling stuck?

Maybe you love your work, but you're feeling burnt out?

Did you know you can design work around your ideal lifestyle instead of squeezing life in around your work?

He even teaches people the most important life skills required to create work that works for you.

He's been working on his own terms, working for himself for 25 years, and he says you can too.

He says their traditional work system is broken.

He's a freelancer, coach, consultant, and what he calls a solopreneur.

Through his website Life Skills That Matter, he helps others get the clarity, accountability, and the confidence they need to gain work freedom.

For this episode, I'm going to be asking Stephen about a type of lifestyle that's referred to as minimalism.

Welcome to my show, Stephen.

Thanks for having me.

I'm really excited to be here.

And it's so funny that you mentioned about how I get people unstuck.

I actually sent out a email to my community today about how to get unstuck.

So it's funny how things align sometimes.

And then in terms of that, there's this term minimalism, which is new to me.

I'm always the last to know things.

Also, what does it mean?

Why do we need another word?

Like, this is how you live your lifestyle, right?

This is how I live, and now we have a label on it.

But tell me, you're more of an expert on the term.

What is minimalism?

It's funny.

I mean, I also am somebody, I don't like labels.

And I was living like this even as a kid, well before it was a movement or a thing.

But I think a lot of times people think of minimalism today as a movement to or a lifestyle to figure out how you can live with less and or how can you kind of reduce your possessions to a point that those are the ones that you exactly need, the ones that you're going to use all the time, or the ones that you find value and joy from, and kind of removing all the other stuff that fills up our life, that fills up our closets, our drawers, our garages, or in some cases, people have separate storage units outside of their homes because they have so much stuff.

And what are people trying to do with this?

What's the goal, their intention that they're trying to get to?

Because you and I are already doing it.

These are people, their garage is full.

The people you're helping, their garage is already full of stuff.

They're like, help me, please.

What are they really wanting by doing this?

I'm gonna be really cerebral and say, clarity.

They want clarity.

So I think people come to this because, for a variety of reasons.

There's always that entry point, but then it really comes into this moment of, who am I, what do I really need?

So people will either feel financially strange and they're looking for ways to cut back and reduce because of financial reasons, which leads to them reviewing their lives in terms of, where is my money going and why am I spending it this way?

Other folks just feel so overwhelmed by all the stuff in their house and things that they're tripping over, getting in the way of, and they just like, I got to get this under control.

I'm tired of living with all the stuff.

I feel almost like I'm suffocating.

I'm feeling trapped by my own stuff.

And then it's lit because then the more stuff they buy, the more they have to go back to work.

Like, they just bought the new surfboard of the kayak.

Well, they should have been saving money paying down the car payment and the house payment instead.

Well, now I got a kayak, and now I got a store again, and now I got to go back to work.

And I think what they really want to do is work less, right, or not work at all.

But that's not really, I think, the best for society either.

Personally, I get bored when I do nothing.

Like, when I left my engineering job, I was bored, which is how I got into my next thing that I was doing for a profession.

But I think they're stressed out, right?

They're stressed out.

They're not happy.

And they, yeah.

It's funny, I, when a lot of these people come to me, they feel stuck in their work in some way, right?

And if they have no idea what they want to do or how to proceed, one of the first recommendations I have for them is to do a purge of their life.

And so that's kind of like a minimalist activity.

That means reducing material things.

That means reducing your usage of social media contacts on your phone.

That's a great one.

Yeah.

So there's, I think a lot of times when we think of minimalism, we always think of like the material stuff.

There's a lot of digital stuff that's cluttering our lives now too, that needs to be reduced.

Because then you get your time, that's time.

Yeah, it's almost like if anybody listening to this, I can envision like somebody who has like just a mountain of like the biggest bag on their back possible, and they're just silver on their knees are buckling, they're hunched over, and they're trying to walk down this path.

And what I'm asking people to do is like, why don't you literally lighten your load, have less things to worry about, have fewer things that your attention is craving or going to be distracted by, so you can really start focusing on what is most important to you in your life.

That's to me what I would say of what motivates me about kind of reducing or what people call minimalism.

So this, and just really greatly, this process that I bring people through is as you're purging your life, you start seeing like what's important, like what's left behind is something that's important to you, and you can actually now see in the context in a bigger way without all the other stuff fluttering it.

Whether it's photos on your phone, or it's just cleaning up your living space.

And then I always invite people to, when they're purging, to journal, like what feelings are coming up, what's important to you, what's not important to you.

And that starts giving you some clues about where you do want to take your life by what's left behind is what is most important to you.

Interesting, because I think one of the problems is people don't know what they want.

And they know they're unhappy.

And it sounds like through this process of not doing as much social media, so you have more time, not collecting so much stuff, you will, by doing that, that's how you're going to discover or in journaling the answer?

Yeah, I think a lot of times we get so stuck in our heads, we're looking for the answer.

And I'm a big believer of like getting out of your head and getting out into the world and purging is an activity.

You're interacting with your stuff, with your email, with your social media, whatever it is you're starting to reduce.

One caveat also, I think sometimes, like everything in America, everything kind of becomes a competition about, there's very extreme nihilism, like how can I live with just 100 items?

Because I think I've seen research, the average American might possess two to 3,000 different possessions.

That's a lot of stuff.

Which is another activity.

They're missing the point.

They've just engaged in another conversation activity that's taking more of their time, engaged with them.

Yeah, and so I think for me, it's all relative.

Everybody's version of nihilism is going to be a little bit different, and you're going to have different starting points or different things.

I just want to put that out there.

There's no one size fits all way to do nihilism, as I think some folks advocate out there.

You just have to...

The idea is, how can you start going through a process of reduction to get to the things that are really important to you?

You know, I'm not into cars, but somebody listening to us might be super into cars, and that's where they want to put some more of their resources toward that.

And maybe like a house is an export into them, you know?

So that's kind of my version of nihilism, to align your limited resources, attention, energy, time, money, connections and knowledge, and put it into the stuff that matters to you most.

So on the flip side, I imagine this is a question.

I'm picturing myself, I have plenty of money to wear.

My social media, I have to do assistance.

I have a house, but I have someone to clean it.

I have a car, but I have a driver.

Where I'm going with this is, I think some people think minimalism will make them happier because it's just get rid of the stuff, because it gives me more time and then I'll have to work because I don't need to spend as much money.

But there's plenty of rich people that are not happy.

So let me ask you, Stephen, is it even though they can have someone take care of the car and do their social media, they would still be happier if they cut down on stuff?

And if they would be, why is that?

I'm understanding you.

Because people ask me a lot of this, so should I hire out different things so I have more time to do more work?

And I'm with you.

It becomes this argument, it becomes this loop of like, we're going to have to keep working more to keep hiring all this stuff out.

So when are you ever?

The goal here is like, how can you work enough to make enough to feel enough?

That's kind of one of my mantras that I'm always helping people.

It reminded me of great memoir.

He's the actor, he does all the Rome, Matthew McConaughey.

Yeah.

So, and I didn't know, I'm like, wow, I didn't know he played the drums and he had a record label.

He had a record label, a film production company, and he was doing his acting.

And he says, he got clarity on what's most important in my acting.

He literally called his account.

He's like, if I just shut everything down, how am I, like, financial wise?

He's like, you've done well, meaning he invested well.

He literally like, that's all I need to know.

And he called it all his other companies, his record label and his production company and said, shut it down, give everyone severance, take care of them, love them, take care of them.

When it slows down and just in a heartbeat, like I'm going to focus on acting and doing the films I like too, because he was in a position where he could choose what he wanted to act and not just the one.

He turned down some pretty big paycheck.

I think another way to think about this too, a lot of times we're feeling overwhelmed or anxious or on the verge of burn out, but we don't take enough time because we're always going, going, going.

We never stop.

And I'm a huge advocate of stopping so you can gain clarity and do reflection like this purging slash journaling exercise I was talking about earlier.

Because reducing means something different.

In the case of Matthew McConaughey, it's reducing his work projects.

I've also, myself, have done social purges, reducing the different people that I'm interacting with or how I'm interacting with them.

So that's what you have to decide for yourself.

And I think the more we talk about it, I guess really my personal definition of minimalism is really getting super clear.

Like your most valuable personal resource.

A lot of people would say money.

They would say time.

Maybe some people would say energy.

It's attention.

And your attention is bleeding.

Like right now, as you're listening to us, your brain is going all over the place.

You might be like, oh my gosh, I totally was thinking about something else about five minutes ago.

Now I'm listening to you guys again.

Yeah.

So that is what I think we're talking about is, where do you want that attention to go?

And it's constantly being distracted.

We live in an economy, we live in a society that is constantly trying to rob our attention from us.

So help us, how can we help people be more mental most?

For example, I think on your website, you have a lifestyle calculator that helps them figure out how much they're spending.

Yeah.

Even though again, back, you were kind of going this direction.

I love that Matthew McConaughey asked his account, like, am I good?

We actually, you don't have to be Matthew McConaughey, you don't have to be a man.

You could do that today if you want to go to life skills that matter.com/calculator, life calculator or lifestyle calculator, you can use either one and download it.

It's a spreadsheet.

Don't get overwhelmed by that.

We have all the formulas figured out for you.

But you can actually work in reverse about what is the lifestyle you think you want to live, like what's the stuff you want to have, the experiences, what are your expenses currently, if you're working for yourself or your business expenses.

You can calculate that number of how much money you need.

And then also include how much money you want to save.

So you can actually figure out how many more years you want to work based on how much money you're going to need for the rest of your life, or how you can start powering down after a certain age.

So you can do it.

A lot of times we get so addicted to the status symbols of like, I want to make six figures and I made six figures, now I want to make a quarter million dollars, now I want to make a half a million dollars, and it's a million dollars, and it's 10.

And before you know it, you're like these billionaires that they keep having to suck up money, they don't even know why they're doing it anymore.

And I just personally, I can't say I've never met them before, but I find it hard to believe that a lot of those super wealthy billionaires are truly happy because they're just addicted to constantly grabbing attention for themselves and grabbing more stuff and having to do more and more extreme things, that just does not seem like happiness to me.

There has to be a place where you feel satisfied with yourself because if you want to tie this into environmentalism, the more stuff you want, the more attention you need, that has an adverse effect on your fellow humans and the earth.

The environmental impact is huge.

This is, for example, how many computers and television sets and cars do you need?

And people are like, well, it's a hybrid car.

It's still a car.

Do you have any idea the pollution it took to make it?

It's so just because it saves energy or it's recycled.

It takes energy to recycle and takes energy to build something.

again, just because it's recycled doesn't mean you buy it and it's good for the environment.

Everything you buy has an impact or do.

I love that you say because it's always like the mantra was that reduce, reuse, recycle.

Recycle is at the end for a reason.

That should be actually a last resort.

Reduce is the first one and that's the one that's really hard for people to think about and want to do.

I'm with you.

I often think we were constantly thinking about all these alternative energy resources.

I think we should absolutely be exploring them, no question.

But the one that we're not talking about is how do we just use less?

It's like we're not being honest with ourselves as a society that we should all be actively, intentionally figure out how could be we using less?

And I feel like one thing I have learned, and I'm not sure if you've ever accounted this, Daniel, in your journey, but the less I have, the more I can do.

That's another one of the kind of mantras I do.

Because my attention is vying or has to worry about less stuff.

I was living out of a bag for two years, traveling the world a couple of years ago, and now I have a house again and a car and a dog.

And it's already amazing, like, oh my God, my car is taking my attention, because I had to get a new muffler on it.

And right now I'm finishing attic.

You hear any background noise, I apologize about that little construction.

But all of a sudden, I see how my attention is being taken away by all of these other things that I did not have to worry about when I was living out of a bag.

Yeah, if you have a house, you always have something to do.

Model on, fix the roof, the plumbing, there's your weekends at your house.

So on the flip side, we talked about Matthew, McConaughey and rich people.

There's the other extreme with the minimalism.

I think a lot of people, they get to, they think, like you said, it's a contest even.

I can get to 100 things I own.

And if I get to 50, I'll even be happier.

And that's not true either, right?

I mean, at least that's how I feel.

Sometimes, or even people with meditation, they become competitive meditators.

Like, I've meditated for four hours.

I'm like, all right, in my humble opinion, you do not understand meditation.

That's not the intention of what you're trying to do here.

Yeah.

So I think, yeah, I think that's also unhealthy because you're looking for this tactic to give you the solution.

And as we've all heard this before, and it's been said over and over again, it's really about the journey.

You know, it's the activity of reducing your life that you start noticing things about your life of what's important to you and not important to you.

Have you ever read the Marie Kondo book, The Life Magic of Tidying Up?

Not that I recall, but I have read one of those books that gave me the great idea.

It's this simple, and I've done this myself twice.

I'm constantly purging stuff even though I try to keep it down, you probably do the same.

I just, it makes me feel good to get rid of stuff.

Well, it's like a check-in.

It's like kind of in the spring and fall and seasonal transitions, you know, spring cleaning, fall cleaning.

I always make it up a habit of my life.

I really, even when I open up one of the drawers in my kitchen, I see like all the different tools I could be using for cooking.

I take out anything I haven't used in the last six months.

I do this with clothes.

Every six months, I look at my closet, and I'm like, if I have not worn it, my inner voice, for some reason, doesn't like it anymore, and it's going to go get donated.

I'm not using it anymore.

So I think you're right.

Even once you purge, it's a process.

And I think really the goal here is that you wanna really be, another thing I always see people do is like, what I'm supposed to do versus what I want to do.

And sometimes when we're trying to even like reduce and get down to 100 things, you're kind of like doing it for other people.

You're showing other people that I can do it.

But is it making you happy?

And if you get, if you're somebody started out with 3000 things and you got down to 2000 things and you feel even happier, great, I think that's great.

Well, what I do is, this is, and I read this in one of those books that you just mentioned.

The simple tactic is, because there's a lot of stuff to remember, the simplest thing I do and it works is, I pick up an object, it could be a book, it could be, my book, books are pretty common things, but the stuff in your kitchen drawer.

And do I love it or just like it?

And if I just like it, of course I like it.

That's why I have it.

And yeah, it's cool.

Maybe I'll use someday.

Do you love it?

Do you love, love, love it?

And if I love it or I think I might, I go with the first impression, I put it back.

I'm going like, get rid of it.

And that's what Marie Konda was kind of talking about.

She's like, hold the item.

And if it gives you her terminology, it gives you joy or deep sense of meaning.

Even sometimes, because sometimes there's something like that we're not using actively to live our lives, but there's something about this object.

Like I have a bunch of nesting dolls on one of my shelves that my grandmother purchased for me when she went to the Soviet Union in 1989 and she brought back lots of different things for us.

Travel the world.

She was an avid traveler.

But I only have saved a handful of things.

And I love looking at them.

It reminds me of her or even that time of my life.

So I think that's what you're kind of looking for here, is is this something I really need and I'm gonna use all the time?

Or does it give me profound joy?

And then sometimes Marie Kondo would also recommend, and I've also recommended people, sometimes you don't need it anymore.

So just take a photo of it.

Because a lot of times you just want the memory of that object, and you can use the photo to get that.

And believe me, I've done this, and guess what happens, Daniel?

You never even end up with going back and looking at those photos.

So it reminds me of maybe it was her, the other thing, one of the things she said was, take greeting card.

Because you mentioned is it sentimental?

And almost I'd feel guilty.

I'm going to throw out my birthday card from my mom or Christmas card from my brother.

I keep some of them because I really love them.

The other ones, I'm like what she said is, they didn't mean you to keep these forever and have you guilty about throwing them away and collecting like a stack of them and having clutter.

That was not the point.

It was a beautiful card of time.

It did its purpose.

You can let it go.

You can basically recycle it.

And she gave me a lot of permission around that.

I love that you brought that up.

Even if somebody just gave you a gift today and it was the thought and they really thought about you, you don't have to keep it.

You don't have to worry about what next time they show up in the house after they display that they say like, no you don't.

I gave it to the neighbor.

But then again, the neighbor loved it.

I do this just before when I'm purging, going to throw stuff away, take it to goodwill.

I go, you know what, my neighbor has a dog.

I wonder if they like this big fluffy pillow thing, that's dirty and I mean, goodwill probably isn't anymore.

I love to see how my dog needed a new bed.

Thanks.

You put the free box out on the curb.

I often think I'm a steward of objects that I truly don't own.

If somebody else in the world needs them, I want them to use it.

For example, my mother gave me my great grandmother's wedding china.

And believe it or not, Daniel, I said, Mom, when's the last time this has been ever used?

And she was kind of running the numbers in her head.

She's like, I think it's been in that box for 60 years.

Like 60 years.

I said, I'm selling it or I'm using it every day.

Like remember, China, previous generations, this is actually your house.

Take it out on certain occasions.

Guess what, Daniel?

I use that stuff every single day.

Because I'm either use it or give it to somebody else who's going to use it, but don't hoard stuff.

So sometimes, I know that's a stretch for a lot of people, but if I'm not using, I truly believe there's somebody else in the world that could use it and appreciate it in a way that I'm not, and I should give it to them.

And it brings them joy.

Yeah.

You can't buy joy.

You're making someone happy.

Like, how would you do this saying, another man's junk is another treasure, and it's good for the environment because now they're not going out and buying it.

Absolutely.

So you're helping yourself and everyone.

So I have a question.

Do you need to be a vegan or vegetarian to be a minimalist?

I don't think that.

Remember, my version of minimalism is it's all relative and you have to decide and there's all these aspects of your life as we've been talking about.

It's not just stuff.

It's digital stuff.

It's social.

It's work projects.

It could be your diet.

A lot of times it is about where you might want to get healthier and you're looking at where your attention is going or the type of food that you're consuming and you might decide to start reducing what you're eating or how you're eating it.

So I personally don't believe that that is a requirement.

Thank you.

I will agree.

It's good for the environment because cows, people have no idea what it takes to keep cows going until you can slaughter them, eat their meat in terms of water and food and resources and pollution.

But also, I think if it affects your health and you need to eat meat to feel good, you could eat less meat maybe.

What you said, Stephen, do what makes you feel good.

The reason I asked the question is-

Stephen, to build on this, I think once you start this process, a lot of times people start with stuff.

I actually have a whole methodology and training of how to bring people through a total purge of their life.

And I often have them start with physical stuff and stuff that's not sentimental because it's easier to start dealing with.

And usually, we end up with purging your thoughts, right?

That's the root of all of it is like, what are these loop thoughts that you know are unhelpful and how do you start purging those?

But you have to go through all this purging, all this other stuff helps you get to that moment to have-

So do you have like a top 10 list?

Yeah, it's kind of like that.

It's kind of going through the physical stuff, then kind of going through the intangible stuff, and then kind of going through your mental stuff.

That's really truly the deep purge of really coming out the other side of who you truly are and exactly what it is that you need.

But there's just one other point I just wanted to make because you pinged my brain.

I think once you start going down this journey, you're going to start looking for ways to reduce and minimize all aspects of your life.

So it might eventually bring you to deciding that you want to become a vegetarian or a vegan.

Give me the top three of your process.

People listening because don't want to overwhelm.

Yeah, September 1, I would say, what is something that's already bugging you that you would like to know?

You're like, I would like to get this out of my life.

I'd start there.

It could be a friendship.

It could be one of your rooms in your house.

It could be your refrigerator.

It could be all the photos on your phone.

What's something that's bugging you?

And the reason why I do that is because there's a motivation there.

You want to get this out of your life here.

And maybe you picked up on this, anybody listening, and Daniel, I keep talking about my inner voice, and there's that other part of you that we're not listening to.

And that's what I love about this purging process.

It kind of starts giving voice to our voice.

We can start having the feelings and not just always trying to think our way out of this.

So that was step one.

What's an area of your life that's been annoying you, and you want to reduce?

I'd start there.

Step two, while you're doing that, I would journal about it.

It could be a voice memo, it could be some notes on your phone.

It doesn't have to be anything formal, but I really encourage people to start.

I want to help build that connection with their inner voice as they're going through this process to see what's coming up for them, and that'll help them lead to the next step of another aspect of their life that they want to purge.

Also, as an engineer, what comes to mind in the journalism is you're going to forget what you did and how you felt afterwards, better or worse, or did it make a difference?

And if you journal, then you'll probably know, oh, I'm feeling better, and how did I get here again?

Oh, I got rid of that.

Or I'm not feeling that much different when I got rid of that.

Hmm, wasn't, didn't make as big an effect as I thought maybe, right?

And the other caveat, because it's kind of like you go to that thing that you're motivated to purge and you kind of do some journaling and then kind of say, well, what's the next thing I would like to purge in my life?

And that's kind of, you just keep taking these steps.

Now, you might, along the way, find some resistance.

So say back to more sentimental objects early on, you're like, oh, I'm not sure about all the baby stuff that my parents say for me if I really want to tackle that.

Just, yeah, don't do that yet.

You know, like, you know, in the early stages, it's about building the habit and priming your brain to say, like, this is enjoyable.

I'm enjoying reducing my life.

So kind of in the early stages, pick the easier things that go for your junk drawer, you know, stuff like that.

Yeah, you know, on the on the parents stuff in the kid photos, my parents are getting old.

So one day I go over for Christmas and there's a box of stuff.

I want a big box of stuff.

I'm a middle.

I'm a middle list already, even though I don't know it.

Thanks, mom.

It was really nice that you were keeping it because now I got to keep this.

Well, to put it, it wasn't that difficult to go through.

And just like we're talking earlier, love it or leave it.

And if I had any doubt, oh, this is a handwritten letter from I wrote to my mom when I was 10.

I like that.

I keep it.

It was actually quite easier.

There was a lot of junk in that box.

Mom was accumulating pretty much every little letter and thing I did.

And I got it down to like one folder.

Yeah, you do.

It is really amazing how you can let go of a lot of different things.

And that were the question, sometimes back to the journaling, the question is, if you're finding yourself struggling to let go of anything, that's where you want to start asking yourself, like, why?

Where's this coming from?

Because that's the thing.

So in a way, you're being held back by all your stuff because you're not dealing with something on the inside.

If you think the extreme example would be a hoarder, somebody is literally being imprisoned by all of their stuff because they're not dealing with something about themselves.

So I'm going to make a resumption here that in the end, what it's really about is a lot of people unhappy, don't know why, because they haven't started the process.

And in the end, it's going to make, it's really no matter, it's not just about their stuff.

Their stuff is kind of like how people drink.

It's a habit, it's a distraction.

A distraction is a good word.

You can get rid of stuff to a point, and then it's going to make you realize that what you've been distracted from, and you're going to see might be what you really want to do with your life, with your time, what's important to your purpose.

And then that's when the big challenge comes in.

So to which, tell me your story, Stephen, because you get this minimalism thing, it's really because it comes down to work.

Most people don't like what they spend eight hours a day doing, and they want to do something else, and by doing the minimalism, it helps them do that better, right?

Yeah, I always had a tendency, like, you know, if you ask my mother, she's like, oh yeah, Stephen, like, growing up had a super simple bedroom, you know?

I did.

I was not somebody who liked a lot of stuff, although I did have different collections, but they were always very organized, like a rock collection, antique art collection.

But advancing to work, I, the universe did me a favor.

I got laid off election day 2000.

I was working for a.com, I was part of the.com bus.

It was partly owned by CBS.

I had started my career in television news at CBS Sunday morning, and moved over to the internet division.

And that began my journey.

I never thought I'd work for myself, I never thought I would do sales, and I ended up building a sale training business for the broadcast industry.

Did very well, had a whole online archive of 600 videos, 35 trainers.

I would also do a lot of consulting, in-person training all over the country.

And that also, that opportunity kind of fell into my lap.

And that's when I started to realize, like, I don't want to do this forever.

Like, how much money do I really need?

And that was like the seeds of how I ended up developing a lifestyle calculator, which is now part of Life Skills That Matter, the business that I run.

You used it on yourself, tested it on yourself.

Yeah, a lot of these business, you do this too.

You have to, like, I always tell people, you gotta kind of do all the research and all the experiments on yourself first, before you start working with other people and advising them, because they want to know that you did it too, you know, and I did it, you know.

And that's a long story short, I did a purge, I started reducing, I started shutting down and selling off different parts of the business.

And I let go, that process started in 2012, and I let go of my last consulting client in 2016.

And that's when I decided I wanted to start the next thing.

And I saw how work was fundamentally changing as we knew it.

Before the pandemic, I just was like, people are going to have to learn how to manage themselves and deal with themselves.

I think more people are going to end up working like I am than being stuck in an office.

And then the pandemic accelerated that process.

And so I think that is the mission that I'm on, and part of learning about yourself, because we're not taught how to manage ourselves, right?

It's not something you're ever taught in school.

And that is, it's also not something that you can measure easily.

It's not something you can quantify or test for, or easily give a grade in.

It's messy.

It's a process.

Everybody does it a little bit differently.

And it's also my version of self-management.

It's not about doing what necessarily capitalism or corporation wants, but you are the starting point.

How do you want to live your life?

You know, you're the one who has to live with the consequences of your decision.

So how do you want to manage yourself?

Because there's no one way to do it.

So I got a picture.

There's two choices.

The one you work for somebody else, one you work for yourself.

There's a lot of things right now, podcasts, things online about working for yourself, starting your own business, which is good if that.

Talk to me about doing minimalism and being happy if you are going to work with somebody and you want to design your work around how you want your life to be, but you're not meant to be a non-participant, or you're going to work for somebody else.

How would that look?

So I want to say like what you've become given us only two choices.

Actually, there's infinite choices.

And because we've all been raised in this system, our entire educational systems designed this way to say, these are the limited pathways for how you can earn a living.

It's just not true.

So there's a podcast that I've paused Life Skills That Matter, interviewed, and I had another podcast before that about why people get stuck.

So I interviewed 500 solopreneurs and people work for themselves about how they got into it.

So there's a spectrum.

So say, for example, there's somebody who's really passionate about, I'm watching the Olympics now, artistic swimming.

Probably not going to make a ton of money as a career in artistic swimming, but you're really passionate, you really want to do it.

But that person probably has a day job, and they have another skill that they're monetizing that they're really good at.

The goal for them is, how can I make the most amount of money in the least amount of time working for somebody else, I have all this extra time to go practice for artistic swimming so I can end up in the Olympics.

So there's a variation of that, right?

That's one example.

Which is a good one because a lot of people think when they hear the word purpose, that means work is my purpose.

I make money doing what I love, and that is actually I think causing some people trouble.

The solution is what you just mentioned.

You created a life where you make as much money working, as little as possible, but at a job you like, not hate, but so you can feed your other passion.

And that's perfectly fine.

That's still your purpose is still to do.

Artistic swimming is your purpose.

You're working to support your purpose, right?

Yeah, and it's also different seasons of your life where you might be working more on your passion, more on the work side.

I think what's really tough for a lot of people, as I've explained this to them, we've been taught about work in these very linear paths of how everything's supposed to go down.

Like my parents' generation, it was go to school, you go to a trade school, or you go to college, you get the skill, you get earned money for life from that one skill, then you retire.

And then you retire, that's key.

Hey, thank you.

That's what people think the goal is to retire.

And then like, did you ever think of what that means and looks like?

And some of them are okay, and then others are, yeah.

And by the time you retire, guess what?

You don't have that young body that you had in your 20s and your 30s to go do other stuff.

You're not doing artistic swimming as well.

No, you're definitely not doing artistic swimming.

Maybe, I don't know.

So, I think, so another, so somebody might be listening to us and they're like, I've been reading a lot, I've been exposed, I think I want to work for myself, but I'm just not quite sure how to get started.

So that, what I generally say to somebody like that is start reducing and start focusing on what do you really need to get done in your job so you can get it done like an hour earlier every day, whether you work in an office or remote working.

So you free up that extra hour to start experimenting about what would you want to do for your work and start using that hour for yourself.

So there's all these ways to kind of sidestep or transition into these different work styles.

And another example, I'm doing a consulting project in the city where I live, in Western Massachusetts, and the city wanted me to, they asked me if I wanted a job, and I said, I don't want the job, but I'll do this as a consulting project, and this is how I would go about doing it.

And they said, okay.

So a lot of times we, I think the other thing that's changed when we even are in a job situation, we think, oh, this person, I'm so lucky enough for them to give me a job, and I have to do what they tell me to do, otherwise they're not going to give it to me.

That's not true.

When you're in an interview, you're interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you.

And if it's not a fit, you want to know about that right away, so you're not miserable three months in, because you weren't honest about what you really needed and how you need to work.

Or Daniel, imagine if we made it a common practice that in job interviews, the employer would say, hey Daniel, can you tell me what makes you feel productive and motivated?

And say like, this is our culture, I don't know if I can hit every single thing that you want, but I really want to know to see if we can do it.

But most people, at least speaking for myself, I would be tempted to make stuff up like I do in a resume.

I feel most productive if I come in the office early, an hour earlier, which might be true, but I'm not going to say if I can have an hour off during lunch to go do a short hike.

Or I'm sure it wouldn't go over well when I tell them.

I find like three out of seven days a week, I need a deep meditation that sometimes slides into a nap for about 30 minutes.

Is that okay?

But you know what?

What really makes me so fired up, Daniel, is that makes me so refreshed and fired up and motivated.

I need that sometimes.

I need to settle my brain down to do a meditation in the middle of the day, or even if I just to sleep, because I get up super early.

I'm up at five and I get a lot done by noon.

Okay, so imagine, we all can imagine the first way, which is your employer interviewing you, their eyes roll, and you know that you probably won't get the job.

But imagine for a moment that they rolled their eyes and go, yeah, that's, you know what, I'd love to do that too.

Go for a hike, that's a great idea.

And they give you the job.

Well, how good would that feel?

Right, I think that's what, I really believe money is important, but it's not the thing that motivates people to want to do work and to want to do better.

They need a clarity of purpose, they need shared values, they need to feel heard in terms of what makes them feel productive.

And, but for whatever reason, employers do not want to listen in a lot of cases.

A lot of them are because of the pandemic, it is changing.

But every time I hear people like, they gotta get back to the office, this is the way it is.

It's to me, like when you were a kid and one of your parents said, do this, and you're like, why?

And they're like, because I told you so.

That's what it sounds like.

Give me a better answer than that.

I'm an adult and I feel like we need to have more adult conversations in the workplace.

Well, it's pretty typical things don't change in the business world.

For example, I had the thought this is a great episode just then for management, for leadership and corporations to listen to.

You always complain and nothing changes, and we want to manage better, get more productivity.

And they'll say they've tried stuff like this.

And maybe it's not their fault.

Maybe some of them have asked potential and someone being interviewed for a job, what would make you happy?

And it's up to that person and the person wasn't honest.

But then there's trickle down to people in management positions want to climb the ladder and then they're afraid to go up too far out on a limb themselves and do things like we're speaking of.

Yeah, I think it's harder and harder when you're inside enormous organizations, that is tough.

That is not how I'm designed.

I am not going to thrive in that.

I like to be much more nimble.

And then there's the other chicken in the egg, which is.

So if you do something that people tell you shouldn't do, you can't do and you do it.

You're like, look, see, I wasn't afraid.

I'm doing it like, wow, they're doing it.

You inspire them to go, I want to do that, too.

Now, like it was a road trip by myself and I'm a woman.

I'm going to LA.

That's dangerous.

And you're going to drive at night by yourself and then go do it.

Then all of a sudden, grandma wants to do it, too.

Like, you know, I want to go on a road.

I want to drive my own car.

So you inspire people.

And I think some of the people in the workforce, the managers, they have been depressed and locked down and afraid actually do that themselves.

They're afraid to ask their boss for an hour off the meditator hike.

And they're so ingrained in that they can't see the forest through the trees.

Yeah.

I mean, well, it goes back to your identity.

A lot of times when I work with people saying, you're going from an employee identity to a self-employed identity and in a way, you have to start being aware that you're going to shed some different attributes of yourself to make this shift.

And it's a grieving process.

It's kind of like part of you is going to go away.

And then you're being reborn into this new identity.

So what I think you're talking about, there's a lot of people that are so wrapped up in different attributes of their identity that they cannot let them go.

And that is what's holding them back.

They're not open to change or they're resistant to change.

They don't know how to adapt.

And that's what causes stress.

That's what causes anxiety.

That's what makes them miserable.

And speaking of miserable, one thing I also want to say, I always feel like when it comes to work, we've also been taught that in order for work activity in our life to be considered work as different from fun, pleasure, et cetera, it has to be a little bit miserable.

And I disagree.

I mean, not everything I do is fun all of the time and things have to get done.

I mean, accounting is not something I want to do all the time.

But when I run my business, it's something I need to deal with and get done.

But I think we need to change that message.

I mean, work is work sometimes, but it doesn't have to be miserable.

Yeah, and with that in mind, what came into my mind is, in terms of the culture we're speaking of, that's where it helps if you want to find a job in a company whose philosophy and their style of work aligns with yours, right?

So rather than quit your job, you could look for a company that would under-

hey, if I want to work for them, they understand me.

At the same time, if I'm also getting rid of the kayak and the extra car, mimilizing, I'll be ready to move.

If they tell me, oh, you're going to have to move a thousand miles away to the east coast or the west coast, I'm like, great, I just pare down.

I've got less stuff.

It's easier.

Easier to manage.

I'm freer.

I can go.

Well, I remember when I went to business school, which I would advise anybody, you don't need to go to business school if you want to work for yourself.

But at the time, that was my journey.

And I had a professor, things I remember is not like academic stuff.

He encouraged all of us to save one year, a few money.

And what he meant by that is, however you're living, back to that lifestyle calculator, save up that amount of money for a year, it just changes your whole mindset and your confidence level about your work options.

Because you know then, based on how you're living your money right now, not like the austere budget, but how you're living, you're still doing everything you're normally doing.

For a year, save that amount of money.

It gives you just so much more confidence about, you can wait things out longer until you can find the opportunity that you're really fired up about.

And I also advise people, especially now, I guess there's some chatter that the job market's getting a little softer.

I don't think it's a good idea to just only apply to job postings online.

I'm a big believer, back to what you were alluding to, Daniel, is make a list of organizations, companies, or industries that do inspire you, that you are fired up about, that do share your values.

And whether they have a job available or not, you should contact them.

Find somebody in the department of where your skill set would benefit them most, and start building relationships with them, or find friends of friends.

Look through your LinkedIn profile, so you're already connected to inside of some of those industries or companies, and build relationships.

And that is what is gonna start giving you opportunities that you're excited about, just applying to jobs online through random job postings.

It's algorithms that are looking at your resume.

It's not even human beings anymore.

Yeah, and one, speaking of connecting on LinkedIn, making these relationships, I made some connection on a software programmer, one of the things I do anyhow.

And I made a connection like you're speaking of.

I saw the job posting, and that's really cool and it pays well.

And maybe I'm tired to work for myself, it'd be nice to work with someone else and on a team.

I like people and go in the office once or twice a week, it might be nice.

I'm just thinking about it.

So I looked at the job description and like, okay, I've got six or seven out of 10 things.

To be honest, those two, I can learn anything.

That's what I do.

I'm a hacker, I'm an engineer, I figure out how to solve problems.

I can learn anything.

Those two, the experience they're wanting is really specific.

To be honest with them, I'm not the best candidate.

But since I was on LinkedIn, and I'm a social guy on LinkedIn, I had contacts and I realized that, oh, somebody in my second, meaning one person removed from me, knows someone who is the hiring manager.

So first I did my research and I looked at their profile and I noticed their history, their track record, which was pretty linear.

They've always been to software programming, always doing something different, and now they're a manager.

And I think it's Photobucket or company like that, that he's working at now.

And I just reached out to him like, hey, I'd like to connect with you here.

I'm a programmer too.

And by the way, I saw this opening.

I'm not the best candidate.

You can see that by my resume.

But just wanted to let you know, otherwise it's kind of interesting job and how things go.

And then he told me stories like, I'm really happy here because I was photography.

I really love photography.

And I think he had been working at Amazon or some big company that it's a lot of people's dreams to be a programmer.

He's like, you know, the money was great, but I really like photography.

So this is awesome.

Now I'm doing what I'm in the business.

I'm not a photographer.

And maybe he wasn't the best photographer anyhow, but he's right there in the business every day.

And he's a manager and he's loving his job.

So now I have that new connection too.

So in that just spider webs out like his connections and my connections.

And he might know someone that goes, Hey, this guy, Daniel, he writes software on how to sing your own song.

Even if you don't know how to sing or play an instrument, you just use his app and it'll tell you, it'll spread out a song for you to sing and help you write it.

Who knows where that might lead to?

And even if it leads nowhere, it's just what we do, right?

We're social and it's a good place to be, even as you mentioned on the LinkedIn and reach out to people.

And that's how you found me.

It is, huh?

It's great.

Or even to tie back to your original theme of your interview about minimalism, is doing a social purge sometimes.

I did this probably 10 plus years ago.

I made a list of everybody I knew, interacted with regularly.

I put them into two different categories.

Are they positive or are they negative?

Are they bringing me up or are they bringing me down?

And I slowly weeded out all the people who are bringing me down.

Not everybody, or I reduced my interactions with some of them.

Yeah, yeah, look, on Facebook you can on Facebook just say, I want no more post from this person.

I don't want to unfriend them.

That's kind of don't, you know, I don't want them to do that to me ever.

But I just don't want to see more post from this person on Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever.

Yeah, and but now and then so once you kind of do that purge, then you're like, well, now I want more of the more positive people in life.

And what you're talking about is being clear about your values or like being intentional about what kind of people do I want in my life.

And a lot of times I think in our society, we're really afraid to like start the conversation or reach out to people or introduce ourselves.

I encourage everybody to do that.

Just focus on what you're excited about.

What are your interests?

What are your passions?

And other people who have that same interest or passion, they'll want to hear from you.

People love talking about stuff that they're jazzed about.

Like you and I today, we're excited about talking about middleism.

Like this is like easy, right?

I'm still trying to really figure it out because you and I live like this on purpose.

So I'm kind of self-analyzing myself.

Actually breaking up, trying to study my own process and lifestyle and go, why are they calling this middleism?

And what are people trying to do?

And don't let them put you in a box.

Don't put me in a box.

A good, I'm speaking of boxes is, you're in an airport or you meet someone on the street.

What do you do?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like to ask people what excites you right now.

And it really throws people when you ask that because it's a different question.

Because usually you're ready to say, they're like, oh, I have to think.

And that's what I like.

And that's what I'm inviting everybody to do is like, because then somebody has to check in with themselves.

Excitement is a feeling.

That means you have to check in with their inner voice.

Like, what is exciting me right now?

Yeah.

And then I get all the random things.

Sometimes it's like a big deep thing.

Or sometimes it's like, I just had the best fried chicken sandwich for lunch.

That's what I'm really excited about right now.

Also, if you were to, if you were to, okay, I got two choices here.

I could tell them I'm an artistic swimmer.

Yeah.

Or I can tell them I'm a stockbroker or real estate agent.

Whichever one you choose, it's going to take you down a path in that moment that you're not coming back.

You're not going to switch with a stranger really.

And think if you tell them real estate, they're going to go, oh, I'm looking for a house.

You might close a sale.

If you tell them artistic swimmer, that's probably going to brighten their day a little more, not just because it's a little more interesting, it's because it's what you love.

But we know what I love that you've said this, because I would teach people how to tell their career story and I tell people, tell people what it is you really want going forward, not just what you think is safe and what they want to hear.

Take a risk, tell them what you want.

I want to be an artistic swimmer and I'm just doing this and then they're like, well, how do you fund yourself?

How do you make money?

Then you can talk about that.

And so what I love about what you're saying is like, you're showcasing your passion.

That's what's really going to bond you with somebody else or get that conversation to take the fire is talk of the lead with your passion.

But also you're denying them the opportunity to really help you by telling them what you think they want to hear.

When you tell them, this is what I really want to do, that they might know somebody that could help you.

And then when they asked, how do you fund it?

You're going to be tempted to go into that real estate mode.

I sell houses.

Instead, tell them the truth, which is, I want to quit selling houses because we all know realtor has to be available every second of every day.

Now, I walk dogs.

Get it out.

I know it doesn't sound as, I'm just making this up to whatever your side hustle is.

Don't feel like you're less of a person.

Because in that moment, they might go, oh, you know what?

I need my dog walk.

How much is it?

Or I know someone who needs this.

I need someone who needs that service.

Your next side hustle, which maybe it's, I'm making this up again, Stephen.

It's to sell calendars.

I'm loving this.

You're like in my head.

Like you're my people, man.

Yeah.

So I'm selling photo calendars of my swim team.

I'm like, oh, you know what?

My agency, we're looking for a gift, a Christmas gift.

Well, we'll take 500 of them.

Who knows?

But if you speak the truth, you can at least have a chance at living the truth.

The more you keep it inside and stuff, you're not letting it go.

You're not the minimalism thing.

It's letting go.

It really is.

And back to this whole thing, the letting go is the clarity.

And somehow, sometimes we're afraid of the clarity.

We're back to the identity thing.

When we say something that is a little unconventional or for a long time, I felt like I had to come up with different stories because believe it or not, like I know more and more people are working like this.

But 25 years ago, when I started, it wasn't a thing, you know?

For COVID, all you people that got to experience getting unemployment and working from home during COVID, you have no idea how different things were before that was even thought of or allowed at all.

Yeah, it wasn't like, you know, everybody, it just seems so people, it was people were dismissive about that.

They couldn't accept there were other ways of earning a living and that it could be done in this way.

But they challenged, and that's what we're seeing still post-pandemic, a lot of the management class of these big corporations.

At the end of the day, their control is being challenged, and they do not like it.

They do not like that the labor force has this power because for the first time ever, it's not one employee competing against another employee.

That employer is competing against the employee themselves, because they can go off and work for themselves now, because we have the tools to do it.

They do not have to take that job anymore.

Right.

So Stephen, is there anything we haven't covered that you think is important to add?

Okay, so there's a ton of stuff on Stephen's website, Life Skills That Matter, and that's the tips, how to make work work for you, calculating your lifestyle cost, and you can also join a community.

You can join, you can hang out with like-minded people and have conversations like this, right?

I do, and if you want to find out, I do a weekly newsletter, it goes out every Saturday morning.

It's our weekly reflection reminder, because I'm a big believer.

If you really want to change your life, you must know how to get minimal, change your work, whatever you want to do in that regard.

I like to be in your inbox to remind you, did you carve out an hour to think about something for this week about you?

What do you want to do?

And I usually have a big thought, like this week I wrote about getting unstuck.

So there's different exercises.

And that's all free.

So you can go to lifeskillsatmatter.com/reflection to sign up for that.

And the details will all be in my show notes for this episode.

Daniel, seriously, I really enjoy this.

I mean, I've done so many of these interviews over the years.

And when I meet somebody who's really, I really do believe that you believe in this stuff.

And that's what I always tell people, when you're looking to really work with people, you want to feel that feeling.

And then it's the whole conversation is so effortless.

I mean, Daniel is the type of guy now, like if you ever need something, I'm totally going to help him out, because I just know he's really into this, into this movement.

And I really appreciate that.

So thanks for the time today.

Thanks Stephen.

Thanks for being on my show.

Have a great day.