Declutter with @peterwalsh | Clutterbug Podcast # 179

hey clatterbugs and welcome back to the clutterbug podcast I'm excited about today's podcast I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna embarrass myself I'm I'm gonna cry a little bit I'm definitely going to overly praise today's guest because this is the most exciting podcast ever this is one of the top moments of my entire life today I'm interviewing my absolute hero Peter Walsh and if you've never heard of Peter or Walsh listen I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you for the past 20 years he has been helping transform people's lives through decluttering an organization he had an incredible show called Clean Sweep he was Oprah's personal organizer and he made lots of shows with Oprah he was on Rachel Ray he has seven best-selling books on organization including two that are New York Times bestseller and still today he's filming a show in Australia in Australia called space evaders and it's starting the fourth season Peter Walsh is I feel like the king of organization and I cannot wait for this interview so let's Jump Right In I am beyond excited that you're here today but I like stop it no I have to tell you because um my assistant Christy who set this up she just had mystery guests put into the calendar well she you have to know who she needs to be fired immediately and she said I was like I need to prepare just give me a hint and she said you won't need to prepare just don't cry and I immediately be burst into tears and I cried for two straight hours you're outside you've lost your mind you've clearly lost your mind I'm embarrassed to tell you this but I've been waiting 13 years oh you're crazy seriously you're a crazy person go on go on um you changed my life oh you're gorgeous you are my hero and I owe everything to you no come on come on I do and and so I I'm gonna like be mature listen Peter we're gonna have a real grown-up uh podcast here but I just I guess I wanted to tell you and I'm not gonna cry but um man every time I get to help someone this the way you helped me it's because of you well it really is um and every professional organizer I've talked to including the incredible Matt Paxton everyone says the same thing I'm like who is your inspiration who like who's the reason you got started it's always Peter Walsh oh look that's lovely of you you know it's it's a it's a weird business um you know and I kind of fell into it to be quite honest but look the truth is my my my theory My Philosophy always has been cursed that you know you know a rising tide lifts every boat you know and I really have always believed that and um you know it's it's a very strange business we work in and um I don't know you know I I love it I really enjoy it but and I you know I people are always surprised when I say you know I really don't care that much about the stuff you know but just see the um you know the change in people's lives to see how it really affects people I mean that's what I really enjoy and I I'm really bummed that the show that I'm doing now here in Australia you know we're about to start filming our fourth season I'm really bummed that it's not airing um in the U.S or in North America at all because the whole focus of that show is very much about the human transformation um and that's you know that's what really drives me um and um you know I think a lot of shows have gotten so far away from that now you know it's you know this you know the the color edit or whatever it's called you know you know Marie condo you know they're all you know so much of them are just you know such it drives me demented it just drives me to momentum um you know man I love that I love that you would see that because uh one of the things I typed to say here was does it ever really piss you off that what's popular nowadays in organization is such fluff like that's how I feel it's such fluff and it's fake and I feel like it's going to so you want for failure it's easy it's easy let's see and that's the thing with TV see I've been it's interesting last week two weeks ago was the 20th maybe a little longer than that very recently was the 20th anniversary of the very first show I shot for TLC clean sweep and um it's interesting that nobody was about the same time that clean house launched with nisi Nash and you know nobody really knew what organizing was you know Napo was in its infancy um and it was purely because it was purely because of what happened the first day on that very first shoot which which coincidentally I was not even supposed to be on um that you know we were not even supposed I was not even supposed to be on that shoot um but the long story short there was a woman who had two teenage boys and um she still had all of their babies clothes and the that very first show for Clean Sweep we were supposed to build storage units in the garage for her and that was just insane you know it was just made no set made no sense to me at all and when we started shooting and we had all of her stuff laid out I said to her and I don't know where the question came from I said to her are you best are your best memories with your boys in front of you or behind you are your best memories with your boys in front of you or behind you and in that moment she completely collapsed into tears and um and she jumped up and ran away from me and I I was very naive myself I hadn't done much TV and I just said to the camera guy and the um sound guy let's go and we chased her down the street um and it turned out that she had always wanted another child her husband wasn't that interested and she when she looked at those baby clothes what she saw was when she felt most valuable as a woman as a wife as a mother um and when being asked to get rid of those clothes what she heard was I don't value in her husband she heard him saying I don't value that period of your life because she didn't see there was baby clothes she saw them as markers of the time she felt most valuable in her life and once we talked that through he was really surprised at that and we discovered there was another woman on the street who had adopted a couple of babies from China or was about to and we got them talking to each other she gave all those clothes to this woman agreed that she would love to babysit for her we never built the organizing units and that completely changed the whole direction of what I did and it and it's it's been that ever since I don't care about the stuff it's about dealing with the power that the stuff has because it's never about the stuff and I think you know a lot of the TV stuff the problem in making TV shows is that producers want spectacle that spectacle usually wins out over substance unless you have the weight to pull it back from that and you know fortunately I'm an executive producer of the show here in Australia Space Invaders and it's you know certainly one of the highest trading shows of its kind in Australia and that's why I you know I don't I don't agree with all these other shows that are really about the fluff and it's a real problem because or they're about promoting Brands and selling product which again you know buying more stuff to organize the stuff that you don't need it's just Insanity you know and it's just rampant consumerism you know under the guise of organizing which is propelling our planet towards destruction I hate it I really hate it and I you know I rail against it um like oh I don't want to offend anyone or seem like I'm being catty but when let's talk about Clean Sweep because I watched reruns it was 2008 when I turned on the TV at my lowest point in my life drowning in clutter covered in baby clothes um feeling like a failure as a mother and as a human being couldn't even get the dishes done most days uh couldn't find clothes couldn't find my shoes couldn't find my phone and I watched clean sweep and it wasn't about the transformation of the pretty before and after the words that you said about you know I deserve this and and I'm not honoring Memories by keeping it that this quote you know you said you're not honoring your loved one's Memories by keeping them in a Dusty box in your basement and and you inspired me to get up and try again and I was able to declutter my home and then organize my home and it really ignited a passion from that television show on TLC it changed my life ah and when I talk to other people I'm hearing the same thing it was like that this Catalyst moment in my life where I heard the words I needed to hear and realize it wasn't about all the things I thought were important it was about me and my family and I needed to decide what was important today and for my future tomorrow and I I got rid of probably 75 or 80 of my things after watching that show you know it's there are two two interesting points the number one is that every single family I work with will start by saying you know I I don't think I can get rid of anything or you know I might be able to get rid of 10 or 20 percent without exception 75 80 is The Benchmark without exception it goes because they just don't don't touch it or use it um you know and the second thing is that one of the things I realized early on is that if you don't judge you can say pretty much anything to people because you know it come for me it comes from a place of honesty and you know I I simply hold up a mirror to people that's my view and and frequently I give people permission that for some reason they will not give themselves and and we're all caught you know we're all caught in this belief and it's so it's so pummeled into us that if you just buy the right things you can acquire the life that you want you know and you know that starts from you know prenatal you know if you just buy this right crib if you just buy these right diapers if you just buy this right this right stroller then you know you'll have a much happier baby you know you can put your baby a newborn baby to sleep in a cardboard box and the baby's just going to be just as happy as they're sleeping you know in a twelve hundred dollar designer crib you know it's no different and yet if you walked into someone's house and they had the baby sleeping you know in a drawer that they'd pulled out of a dresser or in a cardboard box lined with you know a comfortable mattress and and sheets and and and blankets you'd be absolutely mortified but I mean you know there's no difference but yet you know Society tells us the more you spend the more expensive the gift the greater the love it's it's so twisted it's twisted and then once we've purchased that thing once we own it it feels very wrong for people to now Let It Go almost like you're admitting that you made the mistake in the first place or it feels wasteful so I'm just gonna quote listen this it's all too much stop it because uh as soon as I watched Clean Sweep I watched all the episodes which was only on for what two seasons yeah it's funny you know we we shot 120 episodes of that show and it was wildly successful but there was a change in management at this that's the bottom line there was a change in management at um at TLC and they decided to shift away from a lot of those kinds of you know home-based do-it-yourself programs like Trading Spaces and um and um clean sweep and they didn't they didn't make any more they've never released the show on DVD or or you know digital form and this even 20 years later and it's it's now 20 years since we made the first show you know and I've made shows on the OWN network I had five years with Oprah you know I have you know been 10 seasons on Rachel Ray the the consistent question or consistent show that I'm most asked about is clean sweep still all these years later yeah it was uh that's why because it was it changed my life Peter in such a fundamental way I I I I say every time I knew I do interviews 10 interviews a week and they always say how did you get started and I say clean sweep because it's the truth sorry to that point you know it's funny very early on I got an email which I still have in my file at home of um a woman who was sitting at home um in a terrible I won't go into detail but suffice to say she was in you know just nightmare situation and she was sitting at home with a gun in her lap intending to shoot herself and um by whatever you know you know Wrinkle in the universe um Clean Sweep came on and this shared the same experience you know so you know it's it's it's a weird thing you know the power of the show um and and the effect it had on you know hundreds of thousands of people um and to this day you know they as I say people still talk about it sorry I interrupted you there no yeah it has a ripple effect and you know I I'm a huge fan of Matt Paxton he's on Hoarders I know you know Matt he also I mean credits his career with you and and also was inspired by Clean Sweep and And yet when we try to find it on the Internet or YouTube it's like it's it's nowhere and it's such a life-changing thing but people can find it's all too much so as soon as I was watching Clean Sweep I immediately bought your book I read it covered this is like my 10th copy because it's my Bible it's a little dated it's a little bit yeah I use this today still in when I'm organizing for people when I'm teaching people how to declutter I think it's the greatest organizing book ever written I do because it's about the emotion because it's about the why you you're struggling and right like right at the very beginning you say are you saving enough to are you saving enough stuff to furnish a whole alternate universe in which a skinnier you uses the dusty abdominal crunch machine every morning before inserting all your photos into your new album and then you Don the old wig you've been storing in your costume party you're hosting at which everyone will be lounging on the extra chairs you have sitting in your basement for the last six years and I remember reading this and literally looking over at my crunch machine now nobody has that anymore let's let's replace that with yoga mat or yoga ball but um the rest is so true this fantasy of some day we're gonna use and it's not just one or two things it's thousands of things that are suffocating us and you always talk about letting go as being as living a richer life with less stuff which is so ironic because most people struggle to let go because they don't want to waste the money yeah I think there's a couple of things in there the first one is that um this this difference differentiation that I call the product and the promise that people buy a product but they invest in the promise so for example you know you buy the treadmill the product but what you're really investing in is the promise that it will somehow magically make you uh you know healthier you know you invest in the in the skinny jeans the product but the promise you're investing in is that somehow it will make your you know your butt tighter firmer more attractive you know you in you buy you know you you buy the car the house you know the the sweater the watch you know the most recent recently piece of electronics but what you're really investing in is the promise that somehow it will make you you know smarter hipper groovier you know more attractive to friends and family whatever and the problem is that houses that are full of of all of these products but your life your your soul is littered with all of these unfulfilled promises and that's where the emptiness comes from because people are looking at fulfillment through stuff and so they have the stuff but then can't work out while they still have this massive emptiness it's because none of the promises are fulfilled that's that's one of the huge you know that's one of the huge kind of um disparities in in you know putting all your putting all your eggs in one basket I guess or looking at looking at the staff to give you to fulfill your life's desires um you know and and the the second thing is that it's it's interesting that if you look in in Christianity you know the word covet you know Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's Goods one of the Ten Commandments and you know as a being raised to Catholic I never really understood what that meant but as an adult and working in this business I've come to realize that covet is an incredibly powerful word and even thousands of years ago you know when when the The Ten Commandments were were constructed covet I've realized that the the that that comparison is the root of all unhappiness you know you look at what someone else has you look at what someone in an ad has and worst of all you look at what someone on social media has whether it's the clothes the jewelry the car the holiday or even the fake smile and you want that you covet that and we all are now coveting what someone else has instead of being happy with what we have and once you covet once you compare you're on a fast track to unhappiness and emptiness of your soul and that's what wanting stuff investing in stuff as the source of happiness does to you it just eats you out from the inside this like on a fundamental level but we have these moments of weakness where we buy things we shouldn't and and we've made the purchases it's the letting go of those things that are we look around and we see empty promises and we look we see wasted money and we see that it's stealing our space and for me in my cluttered State I hated myself because I looked around and thought why can't I get my life together why am I so lazy why don't I have self-discipline what's wrong with me that other people can seem to do it and yet I can't and really what I needed to do was have the courage to just put stuff in a trash bag or put it into the donation well I needed that I I but it felt like failure and I feel it well that's because that's because you know you're thinking of you know I've spent good money on it you know it's kind of cost versus value you know you've spent money on it but but you don't want to let it go because you don't want to waste that money but then okay that's the value but what's it costing you you know it's kind of sunk cost already you know if you've you've spent the money it's sunk cost I mean I hear that all the time you know and then the excuse well you know I don't want to put it into landfill well usually that's usually that's just a procrastination um but look the other thing too is you know you you're no different to most people you tend to be you know people tend to be too hard on themselves and think they're unique you know we're all we're all struggling eight-year-olds who want the approval of our parents or someone you know in their place who don't want to admit we make mistakes who don't want to admit that we're often confused who don't want to admit that year we want to grab that extra cookie out of the cookie jar when Mum and Dad aren't looking I mean well you know we're all the same we're all exactly the same and I think that's that's why it's important especially in this business you know that you need a healthy dose of you know empathy and to you know Askew judgment you know that like we're all this and we're all the same everyone's struggling with some everyone's dealing with their own demons um and so you know you need to understand that you know everybody's struggling with something and the stuff in your home the stuff in everyone's home has a story and for some those stories are good and for some of those stories are horrendous but it's easier as weird as it sounds it's often easier to hold on to the horror that it is to let go and you know step into the unknown that's who we are yeah but once I started Letting Go it became very addicting I'm going to tell you the truth I'm a little bit addicting to decluttering an organization yeah because I immediately felt really proud of myself and I immediately saw all the benefits of having less which is I had more time I had I was no longer looking for things I felt I felt I think that was the biggest change in me like I felt more in control yeah I felt like I was more confident and I was more confident and that trickled to every single aspect of my life my relationships improved my finances improved um I just and I started this incredible career helping other people transform their lives the exact same way and I'm just I'm so grateful to you but I feel like the work is not done no well it never you know it never is millions of people struggling you know it's it's interesting and I I tell this regularly that in 20 years every single time I have worked with a family where there are children involved young children without exception every single time when I work to declutter and organize a space when children come back into that decluttered organized space without exception children start to dance every single time and they twirl and they spin and I think that's because kids instinctively realize that with the stuff gone now there's room for with the physical stuff gone there's now room for all the important stuff to flow in whether that's you know love or generosity or warmth or motivation you know all the psychic stuff that's really important can now fill the space and and I think that kind of of energy children are much more in tune to than cynical old People Like Us yeah okay I do have to ask because you're Australian how the heck did you end up on a television show in the U.S doing organ were you an organizing expert before like how the heck did you fall into this well you have to realize it was 19 uh when it was like 2003 over background I have a very varied background in I was originally an elementary school teacher I have a masters in Ed psych I'd worked in health promotion and drug abuse prevention here in Australia um for quite a few years um I'd also come to America in 1996 7 with a partner we had a large International interpersonal skills training company for mainly for corporations you know around decision making skills giving and receiving feedback you know handling difficult employees all that kind of interpersonal skills training and organizational change in businesses and then I got involved in the whole.com craze in early 2000 and wrote that up and basically wrote it screaming into the ground and I had a group of friends in La who um who were tasked by if they were making um reality TV programs that a production company in LA and they were making this pilot for Discovery called clean sweep and um I happened to be there one day for lunch with some friends and one of them said to me it was just when Simon Cowell was making it big on America's Got Talent and I have an accent and Americans think that if you have an accent you're much smarter than you really are and um and one of them said to me look you've got experience in organizing in businesses you have an accent you know you've got a bit of a experience in education and so on you would be great at this and because I'm a crazy Australian and I knew nothing would ever happen I did an audition and I got the gig and it just went from there you intuitively knew that and because I've I've watched every episode a bunch of times like on reruns I was watching it in 2008 and it was done I think in 2004 so that was like four years later yeah um you had a way of seeing the truth in people you had a way of of cracking open their shell and getting to the why they were struggling with clutter that was so I mean I I quote you on a daily basis I do because you saw it before anyone else like no one else was talking about it no one else was seeing it in that way so this is just like some natural talent because you don't but from someone look I don't know I don't you know it's a great question I and I say this very humbly I don't know why it is that people open themselves up to me as readily as they do but they do um and I take that responsibility very seriously um you know I kind of joke that um that part of it is because I used to teach kindergarten kids that gave me a lot of training in this area um part of it is because you know my mother was one of 13 children and she grew up on Outback Farm in Queensland it was very pragmatic neither of my parents finished eighth grade I've got six brothers and sisters and they put the seven of us through education I grew up you know a very working class family and very pragmatic parents I don't know you know it's just always been about in you know in my life about being practical um I don't know you know and being responsible for what you owe you know as kids we didn't we had did not have a lot as kids um you're you know you were held accountable for what you owned and what you did um I don't know you know I just love working with people um and I kind of I think you're not you I mean you okay I'm gonna quote your book again listen to me clutter robs us of real value I mean there's so many I I quote you on a daily basis I say that somebody says to me um oh I spent good money on that I said the money was gone the moment you bought it that's you this is Peter listen to me I'm gonna admit the things that come out of my face are just your lessons coming out and these are like Guru life-changing life skills lesson about stuff and you're an incredible writer you're a New York Times bestseller multiple times hold the phone here but the thing is but look thank you thank you Anna look I'm not but but the the other side of it is that if you spend if you spend all your time in a pool swimming you learn how to swim pretty well you know and I spend so much of my time you know with with people you know when we were shooting Clean Sweep we were shooting two shows a week so I would spend I would declutter two you know two large rooms of two houses every week and that was just and we did a hundred and twenty episodes of that show so it was a crazy schedule and you just you got I don't know you know you just develop a facility for very quickly reading a room for reading people for looking at their staff and being able to tell I can walk into a room and tell you very quickly what's going on in a family and in a relationship and it's because you know in the same way that that a builder can walk into up to a house and tell you you know how the room was built or a doctor can look at a patient you know I don't pretend to have that level of professional skills but you know having educational training you know a master's in education you know work for years in drug abuse prevention understanding risk reduction and harm harm reduction strategies having worked in you know in in health promotion you know having worked in you know making interpersonal skills training you know award-winning programs for corporations around all of those areas it all just weirdly comes together you know in a way that only the universe understands I certainly don't understand how it all happened it's very serendipitous but I'm glad that it did and I'm thrilled that uh you know I'm able to do this but I can tell you the very first time I spoke to Napo which was probably 2004 2005. I did not have a good reception it was I was not well oh God no a a lot of people did not I was not welcomed by a lot of people at the very first National Association of uh productivity and organizing um people it was called National Association of professional organizers then because the Clean Sweep had not launched very long and the feeling was and I think justifiably so um that the show painted a very unrealistic picture of how how the process was done you know how quickly a home could be decluttered um you know and and I actually asked that that was one of the first questions I asked the audience which I think they were shocked about I said how many people think I should not be here as the keynote speaker and there was this stunned silent well that's I mean that's what I'm like let's get things out in the open and there was this incredible silence and real hesitancy and then I don't know maybe a third of the people put their hands up and I said I'm really thrilled to thank you for being so honest and I think these are probably your reasons and they absolutely were and you know I think audiences that's you know 17 years ago nearly 20 years ago you know audiences then were very naive about it all but the other side of it was that that marked you know a hockey stick grows in people you know you're an example of people who saw the show and decided to adopt you know adopt the the uh you know a career in professional organizing I think it for many people then it was a housewife hobby as much as people hated to think to call it that and you know professional organizers I think in many cases were treated as glorified house cleaners and I said that too and people hated me saying that you know um and I think even to this day you know there are some people who just you know stick the name professional organizer on there you know on their on their door and should not be should not be professional organizers you know and you know and and the skill the skill and scale of the profession differs some people should just be color coding clothes in closets and some people should be you know have much greater interpersonal skills and should be you know working you know to affect interpersonal change but it's it's difficult to monitor those I'm gonna to be honest I'm gonna talk about some things I've never actually talked about because I I feel like you will get it uh as a professional organizer I feel like I'm a bit of a fraud because I'm not a detailed make it pretty person I'm not align everything up and label everything when I and I've been doing this for 10 years I stopped working with clients about three years ago but 10 years I worked with clients I'm there's never a client that I didn't remove at least a truckload of stuff from their home when I'm going to somebody's house we're eliminating and so they say that clean sweep is unrealistic I mean I've never done a whole house but I can promise you this I've never done a house where I didn't remove in one day a truckload of bags and bags and boxes that's my job is to get to their why to crack them open to expose it to help them heal by letting go of the stuff and I take that very seriously but when I did a show I did I did two seasons on HGTV going into that show I thought like we're gonna do this real and the feedback I got from HGTV was we don't want tears we want a pretty transformation yeah and I spent days with these families I'm like Snot bubbles emotions they had huge Transformations personally and almost all of that was cut from the show yeah well that that's a production Choice that's a that's a choice that knit works that companies make about the kind of program they're making for their viewers they make a choice about who their target audience is and that's what I meant before about you know the product The Producers often want spectacle over substance in your case spectacle when when I say spectacular it usually means more stuff they believe that there's more stuff it's more compelling but for me you know my my I I have much greater respect for my audience than because I think the people and it's been proven here the last season of the show here Space Invaders uh the ratings were growing between 17 and 20 week over week here with our last season and the show while there is a very strong renovation component uh there are actually three co-hosts the two co-hosts with me on the show um so there's a really fantastic renovation component but there's a massive personal transformation component and it's the one that I think people tune in MO I mean you know I've vested interest in saying this um but it but we do absolutely do not steer away from that because otherwise you know the personal transformation makes no sense unless you see the emotional Journey but that's that's that's the problem if you're if you're a higher Talent as you are with to put it bluntly no power um you have no power in a production um whereas here um you know I basically conceived this show and so I do have power and fortunately the production company and I see eye to eye on this and you and the truth is if you've spent days shooting a show you know we spend four days shooting our show and it's cut to 43 minutes um and you know often often the show that's aired is not the show you remember making but that's the nature of TV you know you have to understand that that's the nature of Television um and that's where a lot of criticism comes from that people will say oh you didn't do this or you didn't do that well that's because it's on The Cutting Room floor and it's a shame because you know a TV you know was initially conceived as a you know a great or was thought of as a great tool for education and now it's you know it feels like it's a great tool for dumbing down the masses yeah you know and I think you know you've done a great thing in terms of you know creating your own channels and producing the own your own content in a way that you can control and push out there um rather than through through mass media and I think TV particularly is a dying medium um you know nobody watches TV anymore um says me who you know is still making a TV show but the truth is particularly in the United States you know audiences are dropping I think it's the latest numbers are somewhere like between 10 and 14 year over year um you know nobody's watching TV certainly not young people anyway yeah so you know this is the other thing this is my thing so I love my YouTube channel because I can I can talk and I can teach and I can be passionate and hopefully I'm try every time I'm trying to inspire them to get off the couch and change their life that's always my goal but now with Tick Tock coming in and there's a change again people want give it to me give it to me give it to me it's very hard to connect with someone in 30 seconds I'm fairly pessimistic about um you know where we're headed as well I may not be the guy um you know do I have to answer this for you I don't have a very kind of positive outlook on you know on on where we're headed in terms of global consumption in terms of what we're doing to the environment you know I walk into stores you know into any of the large variety stores um you know homeware stores and look at all the all the crap you know that's been you know manufactured that we absolutely don't need that people are filling their homes with um you know an incredibly cheap prices so if it's cheap it must be good um or if it's cheap I'm going to buy it you know that's what drives people but the thing is that you know and you know if we want to be more organized you know to be organized or gonna all to be of organic and organized come from the same root you know organic whole human complete one you know that's what organic is and if we want to be organized it's not about our stuff it's about our home our head our hearts our hips our health you know and we're Global Citizens now we want to be organized then you know it's about not the stuff we buy it's about the lives we live and that's you know that's kind of the message I have now after 20 years of working in this you know I'm very dispirited looking at the fact that you know consumption is still an all-time high you know that people are still buying crap they don't need uh you know this this seeming Nash International covet covertness uh fostered by the internet you know people still look to stuff to to fulfill their lives here's what I'm going to say I think the greatest way to stop consumerism as an individual this is personally to stop that addiction of buying is to feel the pain of decluttering when I had to decl and it hurt it's like getting spanked with a ruler by a nun you're like ouch I might not it makes you stop and think when you're at the store when you feel the pain of Letting Go and like I shouldn't have bought that oh I gotta donate it oh I shouldn't have bought this look at all this stuff I wasted money it makes you stop and think twice when you're at the store so when we have this big problem of over consumption and all of us have these shopping addictions how do you as a person stop this habit I think you can make it you can stop this yourself if you're listening by filling a bag by looking at your stuff and being real with yourself and feel the pain of Letting Go you know you should you're going to think twice when you're at the store of of of the more you let go of the more you appreciate what you have the more you just let go of all the excess the more fulfilled you feel and the less likely you are to make those impulse buys at the store and I know this because I've seen it with myself and I've seen it with thousands and thousands of my clients as well Peter yeah look it's it's interesting it's it's the Paradox of the less you know that everyone thinks that that more is better and it's funny how you can be so filled with filled with so much by embracing the less and I see it constantly too that every single time when I have helped people let go of stuff um and only bring back into how I can't remember who it was I originally said this it's not my quote you should only have things in your home that are beautiful and useful and when I've had helped people to get to that point and the things that they do keep are treated in their home with honor and respect that that feeling that you have when you go on holidays and you step into a hotel room or step into a place you're staying and you just have that that feeling of oh how this is so relaxing this is so beautiful you can you can create that feeling every time you open the front door of your own home um and if you don't have that feeling why don't you have that feeling and you can get to that um and that is that is the Paradox of the less that by having less you can actually give you and your family so much more than you ever imagined um and it's only by letting go that you actually come to discover that as weird as that sounds that's the truth and for me that's that's where the bright light is in all of this yeah it's a bright light for me too I'm impulsive I have ADHD so I had a shopping problem I still I'll go to the strawberry look at these candles ooh two for one they're on sale but my brain goes all right where are you gonna put it Caz you already have candles at home are you gonna have to just declutter this this is now my brain stops me because I've done the work of living with less I now have this unconscious break when it comes to buying things I shouldn't and that came from decluttering a lot over and over and over again and this is something you can do too you can save yourself money you can save yourself so much by being brave enough to let go of the things in your home okay I do have to talk about one more thing because this is going to be my new Bible Let It Go I have aging I have aging parents um my stepfather has terminal cancer he only has a few months left and so my mother is very aware of having to downsize and let go and this is the most emotional just I have aging parents who now have to downsize and I obviously am going to have to be their support in this and I read the words in your book and I feel like I got this a little bit better but what was your inspiration for this book um my it's my recent book Let It Go downsizing um it's a whole process for downsizing um after my mum passed away um my six three brothers and three sisters and I basically had to go through the whole process of of decluttering downsizing the family home and basically from years of doing that process with families and then the whole very personal um approach of doing it with my own siblings with my own family that's where the book came from so it's both kind of a personal journey and also 20 years really of 15 years of collected knowledge of how that process works and it really is a very kind of how-to book built on personal experience and how do you get to how do you decide what to let go of how more importantly how do you decide what to keep when you downsize how do you decide how much of what you are keeping to keep um you know how to negotiate that with with uh with other people in the family what are the methods for letting go of stuff um yeah it's it's it was an interesting exercise with my brothers and sisters to say the least well I'm grateful for it and I am going to put the link down below for anyone else who I just think every one of your books is a must I'm just going to say that I want to talk about two things before we go first is with all these popular organizers up here do you ever think I said it first and I said it better um because I think that every day he wears the crown he is the king um yeah that does occur to be pretty regularly actually um yeah yeah I'm glad um it's all too much was translated into Japanese many years ago um and I pointed that out at some stage to someone and um that was an interesting moment that's about as much as I'll say about that um I'm gonna say it people always say Marie kondo was the queen of organization and I always follow that up with long live the king because you said it please don't say don't please set it please I know I do and I say it because it's the truth and I want you to know that we know that we know that and we we as a it's a big difference look it's a big sand pit and I really do believe this it's a big big sand pit and there's enough room there's enough room for everyone look it's it's more abusing than anything you know it's I mean I'm not sure there's even one original thought in the universe anymore so look if it helps people real I mean to be honest if it helps people very humbles of you well I don't know you know you don't know me that well to be able to say that I just find it very amusing that F sharp is the uh I think that's what it is F sharp is the best note to which start decluttering and so you know Marie selling F sharp tuning Forks on our website I just find that the most amusing thing of all but I did not know just can we collectively eye roll it's fine okay look it's look it's it's really about look I'm I'm being kind of I'm being silly here look it's horses for courses and and I really mean that look I have I I don't agree with Marie kondo's methodology um I I've I've worked with Marie and I met her before she's absolutely lovely and delightful um I and I wish her a huge commercial success and I genuinely mean that I just don't agree with her methodology I really don't I think it's I think it's naive and I you know I just don't I just don't think it would work for most of the people I work with you know if you asked if you asked a hoarder or you asked a child you know show me everything that Sparks Joy good luck um certainly in my experience it would never work um and so I just don't agree I think I think I just don't agree with her methodology that's and she probably doesn't agree with mine but the fact is it works for many people and if it works for them good for them if it gets to the right outcome that's what I believe and that's what I mean that's what I believe yeah yeah she made decluttering uh she inspired people to declutter the mats at the end of the day all that matters but I just wanted to let you know that um you're the king okay one last thing I want to say before I let you go I appreciate you so much I can't watch Space Invaders and this crushes me every day I've tried a million ways to like illegally download it can you please just think about something in the future I hope you get 50 Seasons but when it's done can you put it on YouTube for free that is way beyond my pay grade um I would love for it to be available digitally you know through through the interwebs but it is beyond I do not own the content so I I I have no control over that I'm sorry I wish I could and if I could it would be up tonight but unfortunately I cannot do that well then I'm crossing my fingers that someday this is available I mean I'll buy it on iTunes I'll buy it on Amazon Prime sell it to Netflix because the world needs this the world needs to hear your wisdom to find the courage to let go because that's what you gave me you gave me the Courage the wisdom the knowledge the life skills to let go and I mean the organization is easy the organization is nothing now you're just putting stuff into baskets the real work is Letting Go and um the group taught me that so so thank you well and thank you and thank you for the work well and thank you for the work you do you know um look you know I I accept the fact that I inspired you and I'm you know thank you I'm glad for that but the truth is at the end of the day and when people say that the the reality is that that may well be the case but you they did the hard work that's the truth you know that's the other side of that coin I might have been an inspiration but I wasn't there to do the hard work and I think that's why I you know you say I'm humble about it but it's because I know the work that's involved in getting from inspiration to reality um so you know you did that not me you did that and so you need to take you know the the Lion's Share of the credit for that um as do as does anyone who's climbed out of you know a cluttered overwhelming you know amount of stuff in their home and that's where I'm you know I'm I'm in awe every time I work with people who for whatever reason make that decision and manage to make that real in their lives so thank you but you know thank thanks to you for you know you do great work all your stuff is absolutely amazing you know I'm I'm pleased to be you know playing in the same sandpit issue well we're not in the same sand pit but I'm grateful to have a a couple of uh little bits of your standing no we're both in there we're both in there I'm I'm honestly so eternally grateful to you and I'm glad I didn't cry like a baby during this podcast but um when somebody I'll be 90 years old and somebody will say to me on my deathbed they'll say who was you're here and it will always dial it back dial it back dial it back it's true it's lovely to talk to you it's I'd love it and fire your assistant for not telling you who the guest was tonight okay I love her no she I I she she just put a smiley face I literally burst in tears look at I'm getting emotional now stop it thank you Peter for being my pleasure guys put links in the description if you if you haven't watched Peter walls go to his YouTube channel go to his website um let's all write a like a a letter to us the government of Australia to release Space Invaders season four he's in preparation now um just it's such an honor to be able to speak with you so absolutely my pleasure anytime I really enjoyed it thank you so much we'll see you later and thank you for listening

Channel: Clutterbug Podcast

Views: 202,450

Keywords: clutterbug, podcast, organize, Peter Walsh, declutter, clean sweep, space invaders, Let It Go, Lost The Clutter, Lose the Weight, New York Times best-sellers

Id: EVbYIl4kqug

Length: 55min 49sec (3349 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 05 2023