Ep. 319 | Toxic Hustle Culture

[Music] hello minimizers welcome to the minimalist podcast where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less my name is joshua fields milburn and i'm ryan nicodemus and together we are the minimalists look around we are busier and more stressed than ever we've been told by many well-intentioned people that it's necessary or even virtuous to work hard to grind to toil but what's the truth today on the podcast we're talking about the toxicity of hustle culture then this thursday on the minimalist private podcast ryan and i will discuss emotional intelligence kindness and self-awareness you can check that out at patreon.com the minimalists your support keeps our podcast and youtube channel 100 advertisement free because say it with me advertisements suck yeah they do ryan our first question today is from sarah on facebook in a way don't people say they're busy because it's cool to say your life is full of obligations let's talk about busyness for a second ryan remember how it used to be a badge of honor for us man i still hear it all the time don't you oh yeah in fact i often want to say it during like small talk what are you up to oh just real busy right now now what am i saying when i say i'm busy i'm really saying my life is out of control whenever i say i'm busy i'm really saying i don't have control of my calendar i don't have control of my own obligations i don't have a control over the things that i do from day to day from hour to hour from minute to minute so if i don't have control who does it's everyone else who's permeating my inbox it's everyone else who is dictating what i'm going to do on my calendar i'm saying yes yes yes and i'm accidentally saying no to the things that are most important and so to address sarah's question head on yes we quite often do it as ryan said as a badge of honor it's almost become a a status symbol i'll paraphrase thoreau when he talks about it's not enough to be busy the question is what are you busy about that's not a direct quote but that's the essence of of the quote and so if i were to append that the question is what are you focused on and right now we're so busy because we're not very focused on the things that matter to us it's very easy for us to just browse social media get on tick tock or instagram or incessantly check my email over and over and over responding to everyone else's emergency pretending as though just because something's urgent to to jordan or johnny jump up on the street it has to be urgent to me and it's really stressing us out i've got this article here ryan called the toxicity of hustle culture the grind must stop now i don't agree with that either at least the title maybe it's meant to just get people thinking about it here but i guess the question is like what are you hustling for we were supposed to have gary vee on the podcast today and i was really looking forward to that but unfortunately he's too busy to be here today maybe because other people have control of his time and he feels so busy he has so many obligations and so he actually pitched us asked us to be on the podcast we didn't reach out to him to have him on and i i first i said no because it just didn't make a whole lot of sense if if there's anyone i disagree with more i can't think of that person with respect to being busy and hustling and grinding it's not that i disagree with that for him it's just it's so unappealing to me now because ryan back in our 20s we lived a lot like that yeah 80 hours a week yeah i mean we did it to ourselves man you were talking about answering emails and text messages and phone calls and uh we the problem is we never said no to anyone and that creates a very busy life yes um so yeah you know that whole that whole attitude of gtd get things done right i mean that's that's what we were living in and yeah you're right like being busy was this badge of honor it was to the point of you know we would belittle our employees if they weren't busy enough or heaven forbid they took all their vacation i mean remember like how much ridicule people would get like they'd have two weeks of vacation it's coming up on holidays and they're like yeah if i don't use it i lose it right um although you could get paid for it instead of taking the time off so that's what you know the real that's what the executives said they didn't take their vacation they just you know took the extra two weeks pay right where we had you know employees that were like no i'm gonna take the two weeks that i have spent some time with my family and man like we just uh yeah i like i resent myself for looking down on people like that and not supporting them um doing what they need to do to recharge doing what they need to do to you know keep their family life well instead yeah we looked at them and we're like you're so lazy yeah we treated it as a character flaw yeah just because you want time for yourself outside of work whatever it was a character flaw and the truth is like if you want that fine if you don't want that that's also fine and so i think we need to identify maybe our friend erwin mcmanus has been on the podcast a few times he makes this great distinction between hurry and hustle he's a big advocate of hustle and for him what he means by hustle is like being deeply compelled to do something and working hard at that thing at which you're deeply compelled to do almost a sort of devotion to the work or to the creativity and that devotion is what he considers to be hustle and for me i have no problem with that in fact by that definition by that viewpoint then i hustle a lot right yeah i think the problem is especially back in our corporate days or even now if i'm not careful i will do things hastily in a hurried fashion john mark homer wrote this book called the ruthless elimination of hurry in alabama i think we're trying to get him on on the podcast and the the fascinating thing about that is we have started to wear hurrying as a badge of honor as well yeah it is virtuous to be what efficient it's virtuous to be what productive nothing wrong with being efficient nothing wrong with being productive in fact people often think we the minimalists that's the 10 people in this room or whatever are productive and we are productive in the sense that we produce things that we find to be meaningful creations we're not productive in the sense that we must produce more we must be more efficient efficiency is great as a byproduct productivity is great as a byproduct if it becomes the point of doing what we're doing then we're just going to be hurried we're going to be hustling for no reason yeah yeah so let's talk about this article your alarm rings and you wake up first thing check your phone you go to the bathroom then recheck your phone then you eat breakfast while bolting out the door and simultaneously scrolling through emails when you finally make it to work you scarf down meals in between meetings when you finally quote finish work it still follows you home you continue to check and respond to emails while watching netflix and talking to your family finally fall asleep despite all the blue light in your home the next day repeat does this sound familiar it sounds pretty exhausting to me this toxic cycle is called hustle culture the societal standard that you must exert yourself at 110 capacity to hustle success doesn't take breaks hustle culture doesn't sleep hustle culture works day in and day out pushing to maximize all 1440 minutes in every day you don't stop when you're tired you stop when you're done and throughout all of this you must embrace the facade that you absolutely love what you do no matter the pain it may cause the unfortunate thing about this ryan is you can often love doing something as that's the vernacular they're using i would just say you enjoy something you you enjoy creating maybe you enjoy writing but as soon as you put a real formalized structure around it you can often stop enjoying it i think about a writer who's now forced to write a book they don't want to write and they have a deadline in order to do it yeah that thing that you loved now is draining to you yeah what's interesting how like i think part of the hustle culture is you know find out what you're passionate about and then hustle to make money from that passion and what you just said like that's that is a surefire way to kill your passion right is to to to make it your busy work yes because it doesn't it doesn't get to be a get to that now it turns into a have to and there's nothing wrong with making money from what you're passionate about like don't get me wrong but you know i have uh i got a you know a friend who called me the other day he's like oh i got this really good idea for uh for a blog and here's what i'm doing and you know i know that you guys have a blog and uh uh talk to me about monetizing it and i'm like no dude i'm like if that's the reason why you want to start a blog like that's hey it's not going to last and be like that's the wrong reason you're going to hate the blog eventually yeah and i would also apply that to anything else that we've done we started the podcast there was no monetization of it there were no ads there was no patreon when we started touring we lost tons of money touring because all the events were free and we would just show up and if we sold enough books in one night we'd have enough money for a hotel room and then the money was gone maybe a meal yeah and then the money was gone we'd do it all over again it wasn't about monetizing the thing the same is true with social media we still don't monetize our social media and even the blog there's we don't make money directly off the blog there are some things that it can lead to that we can earn money from but money has never been the point yeah and if it's the point of doing what you do then that's probably going to burn you out yes over a long enough timeline as you said there's no there's no problem with making money i want to earn a living i want to be able to earn enough money to pay everyone in this room yeah and the where we get into trouble though is now i feel compelled by society not by this inner compulsion to to create to make something worthwhile but i feel compelled by society here are the things i'm supposed to do i'm supposed to say yes to this meeting i'm supposed to say yes to this person i'm supposed to say yes to this project to this work to this obligation to these hours and at first when you're starting saying yes to a lot of things makes a lot of sense because you don't know what to say no to right away so try different things out like as a baby when babies are first trying food it's like you can tell whether they like it or not right away but the only way you can tell that is if they try it out when you enter the workplace it's the same thing i'll try this out i'll try going to meetings on monday mornings the problem is when you and i clung to meetings for a dozen years yeah we have to go to a meeting we have to show up and do this thing over feels so important man oh i think that's the other piece of it too right that's why it's a badge of honor you feel important you feel like you're making a contribution um well especially from where we came from where you know none of our uh none of our our parents or you know um aunts uncles like none of them were like these executives right so we saw this opportunity to have some influence oh i'm an executive i'm i'm a manager i'm a regional manager whatever it was and uh yeah you get with the wrong company then you have to be busy in order to have that role and we never stopped to ask ourselves why um like why will this make me important and and okay let's say it does make me important why do i want to be important right oh is it because i want to be validated by someone else okay is this the best way to get that validation or can i recognize the whole sham that being validated by others is anyway because i spent a lot of time making myself miserable in order to be important what an equation introducing low-grade suffering into my life just so that i can seem important to other people yeah how do i become important over them i have to have dominion over them yeah right and so the hustle culture leads to all of this toxicity in fact there are five or maybe ten things here what to do when you're stuck in hustle culture i'm just going to read a few of these podcasts john if you put a link to this article in the show notes i'd really appreciate it but the so it talks about the impacts of hustle hustle culture it talks about some different data they have here how we're actually less productive the more we hustle so that's fascinating we think we're doing something but really just spinning our wheels what to do when you're stuck in hustle culture number one start with awareness by becoming aware if you are in a cycle of hustle culture you possess the foundation for change so of course yeah if you're also aware that hey this thing that i'm hustling for is making me miserable that's a problem however if you're hustling and you feel so fulfilled and rewarded by the hustle that you're doing great why would you stop that yeah and so it doesn't have to stop that's why i have problems with articles like this they treat it so binary hustle culture bad no no toxic hustle culture often makes us miserable because of the hurry because of the busyness because of the over obligation but hustling towards something that we devote ourselves to can be really beautiful yeah a couple more things here acknowledge what's important to you so of course that's what we're talking about here if you're hustling towards something that is actually important to you not i'm going to be important but what is actually important to me yeah man that's really helpful it makes me think about um yeah when i was just kind of going over what was important to me after that packing party where i was listing out like oh man here are the things that are important to me and that was the the first step to actually creating um some different behavior in myself because i realized that hardly any of my actions actually aligned with what was important to me no wonder you were so discontented right because when we're next week we're talking with ian kron we actually recorded this yesterday but we had a podcast episode with ian kron and he wrote sort of two definitive books on the enneagram on personality tests and identity so the episode next week is about identity clutter and one of the things that you talk about in depth there i'll just touch on it briefly is no wonder we're so miserable because we feel all this shame when our actions don't match our values and so what do we try to do quite often we try to change our actions we try to change what we're doing we try to hustle more we don't stop to question what we're valuing yeah what is actually important to me yeah i'll read one more yeah absolutely i'll read one more here reward yourself now not later hustle culture is built on the mantra that your hard work will someday pay off break this cycle by creating boundaries in your schedule and reward yourself with practices that will build your resilience and prevent future burnout i think that's one of the things that people run into the burnout side of things right i feel like i'm not getting any fuel from this i've burped all of my fuel by hustling hustling hustling what am i really getting from this i'm working 70 80 100 hours a week our friend colin wright when he first stumbled into minimalism it's because he was working 100 to 120 hours a week with his own design studio and he realized like this is not sustainable dude leads the burnout and i kind of want to go into burnout but i know we have a question about burnout so i will save it well let's move on to amanda's question or if you have a question for us by the way or a minimalism tip give us a call 406 219-7839 or email a voice memo to podcast at theminimalists.com amanda in seattle washington has a question for us when you recognize that you know hustling is leading you to a burnout what is the advice on how to approach that with your employer i've seen a lot of people that just end up hitting that burnout and they end up taking a lot of time off on fmla or you know how do you approach that with your employer before that point and what's your advice on where to go from there all right so let's let's talk about burnout and uh what leads to burnout what happens is you say yes to as many things as possible right and maybe it feels really good to fulfill all these needs to help people to contrib whatever it is whatever need it's fulfilling because it's fulfilling something right um the problem is is that eventually you you like look at your schedule you look at your life and you're like oh my god what have i done how how has it got to this point now here's the problem with burnout if you're already burned out that's you're in this situation where you think it needs to be binary either i continue to burn out or i quit my job and that sucks because now you're in this like pressure cooker situation so um what i'm trying to say is if you're already burnt out it's kind of too late but that's okay um you can still create some boundaries and do some things to help get out of the situation but um i'm just thinking to myself where i was so burnt out i'm like oh my god i have to like i gotta quit my job right yeah and in fact i think the reason that we go toward that ryan is because here's the problem we're talking about she's what she's really asking amanda is how do i reset expectations with my boss as though it's a one-time thing here's the problem let's say you've worked there like you and i were at the same company i was there for a dozen years for a dozen years my daily action set a particular expectation yes and so if i said hey i'm willing to work 90 hours a week then that was the expectation i was setting and not only was i setting that expectation once i was setting it every day i was setting that expectation when i was responding to emails 2 a.m or whatever it was right like whenever i was constantly working hey i'm my expectation was i'm willing to out work everyone else and again nothing wrong with that if that is the byproduct but it became the point for me of here's what i'm going to do i'm going to work harder than you well why i don't know i didn't stop to ask myself why and so the unfortunately the simplest path at this point amanda may be to find a similar job in the same area let's say you work in tech well finding a different tech job there in seattle may be easier for you to set those expectations with the clean slate yeah that's that's a great idea i what it makes me think about is what you did with our boss when uh he was you were at the dinner on christmas eve and he's calling you and you're like yeah you're out to dinner yes and you're like no i'm not i was on a date yeah like i know i'm not answering this uh-huh and uh he just kept calling and calling and calling yeah eventually like a crazy ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend right yes right yeah 20 missed calls yeah so then yeah you pick up the phone hey what can i do for you where are your sales at right now where are your sales at how are your stores doing and you're like oh you want me to tell you how my sale i have no idea yeah it's six o'clock on christmas eve and i'm out to dinner right now that's unacceptable like and you're like no i think your your expectation is unreasonable yeah that's the problem and i think in a weird way we were both right yeah it was unacceptable in that culture it was and so here's the weird thing about so i did reset an expectation with him hey i'm not going to answer your phone calls anymore after 5 p.m and why did why were you able to set that expectation well two reasons one is because i added so much value that um i i was able to dictate some terms right because i had some freedom there now here's here's the honest answer though the dynamic of my work changed significantly after that i was no longer the prized employee there because of the expectation of that culture of that corporation was especially in these middle management or upper upper management roles you had to be accessible like a doctor 24 hours a day except we weren't saving anyone's lives i couldn't even save my own life my own life was in shambles but i was supposed to be on call like a doctor and so you're right i was able to reset an expectation that gave me a longer runway but ultimately that expectation resetting didn't change their expectations long term and so i did have to find an exit and that's what i would say to amanda don't jump up and quit but if the expectations of the culture you're not going to change the culture of a company true you can however find a company with a culture that aligns with your values go back and listen to our episode that we did with ken coleman recently he had a new book come out it was a recent episode we'll put a link to it in the show notes but amanda i'd love to send you a couple tickets to our love people use things tour event ryan and i are in the middle of this tour it's 20 different cities all over the u.s and canada we have 11 cities left we'll be in new york and boston and d.c we'll be in chicago and toronto and minneapolis and columbus will be in vancouver and los angeles and seattle and san francisco you can find tickets at theminimalists.com tour if you can't make it to any of those events though we're posting all 20 over on patreon patreon.com the minimalist you can watch or listen to all 20 of those events but amanda you don't have to worry about that we're going to send you a couple tickets to the upcoming seattle event which is taking place i think next month all right man technically it's an international tour man because of canada yeah and if she wanted she'd go to vancouver it's just a little bit north that's right come on up the one thing i do want to say here though is like when you're resetting these expectations when you're telling someone no it's not just looking at them and saying no like it's really helping them understand why you're saying no and you do that by helping them understand what you're saying yes for yes instead of saying no no no it's like the same thing we talk about with christmas gifts it's not about no no no don't give me christmas with gifts ba humbug you don't want to be ba humbug at work either you can say yes in fact i do this with my daughter all the time how can we go eat at tatsu ramen it's her favorite restaurant yes we can do that next week if you behave yourself between now and then so i'm not saying no we're not going there tonight because it's effectively the same answer but i'm saying yes to some future future expectation future desire for her and you can do the same thing here you can reposition it you can you can reframe it in a way where we're saying yes to the things that are truly important and that might mean you have to say no to some of the busy work some of the hurry that's going on in your life right now him alabama can we check in with the patreon live stream do you have any comments right now we have a lot of listeners that are tuning in from the uk sweden australia czech republic denmark and so much more oh wow we have uh you know we have no tour stops over there right now quite a few travel restrictions but um we hope to see you as soon as uh as soon as we're able to get to the other side of this ryan what time is it you know what time it is it's time for the lightning round where we answer your text messages you can text your questions your comments to 937 you nailed it nailed it those those texts actually go to both of our phones this weekend i uh hopped on right i probably spent i spent i had on friday four or five hours responding to maybe 500 different text messages sometimes i'll just i'll just go in and answer real quickly or here yeah they'll ask a question i'm like we just did a video about this how come they haven't seen them of course they haven't seen it so i'll just send them a link to the video or the last some long question or short question i'll just send them some sort of pithy response so we don't answer every question we do answer occasionally some here on the show so during the lightning round this is where ryan and i do our best to answer questions with a short shareable less than 140 character response we put the text to these minimal maxims in the show notes so you can copy and share or pick the answers on social media if you like and now you can find all of our minimal maxims in one place minimal maxims.com todd has a question for us i made the hard decision of giving up my career after 16 years because the stress was killing me how do i get past the pressure to go after another traditional career a big house a nice car so this is actually my this is tweetable i know because i tweeted it to make sure but this is an excerpt from an essay that i just wrote so during our right here right now segment where we talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist we have a brand new essay up on the website it's called nobody has the power to upset you love it this was really uh helpful for me yesterday um but uh this is an excerpt from that essay we're going to talk about it on the maxwell episode a bit more but here's my pithy answer what others think what they believe what they expect these are bars to a prison cell to break free you must realize that those bars are lining their cage not yours you can walk away at any point so ryan let's talk about these expectations really what he's talking about here you may not want the traditional career the big house the nice car these are things that other people want and they also want you to want them or at least that's what you think you think they want you to be in a big house maybe they'll appreciate you more maybe they'll love you more maybe they'll care about you more maybe they'll need you more if you have more of these resources right but that's a type of prison but those prison bars are theirs they're trapped by that yeah they're trapped by their need for a bigger house for a fancier car for an important job title yeah you don't have you can walk away from those bars they're not yours to hold on to what we were talking about um this isn't my pithy answer but it could maybe it could be pithy but the whole uh uh when you when you let your expectations be dictated by society it can only create anxiety yeah i mean that's the problem is like we are yes we're letting others create our uh our our needs are once um here's my fifth answer when you sacrifice your contentment all that remains is discontentment yes so it sounds real simple but we don't appreciate that enough no every time you say yes to something and it creates and sacrifices some type of uh contentment in your life then you're just creating more room for discontentment now we gotta pay taxes josh we gotta we gotta fill up paperwork we gotta be on the road there are things that we don't necessarily want to do but we have to sacrifice a little bit to get to where we want the problem is when we sacrifice too much or we sacrifice our values yes absolutely yeah 100 so what what is important to you we often ask that question but here's the truth right now whatever you're doing right now is literally by definition and by its very essence whatever you're doing right now is the most important thing to you so if you are on tick tock scrolling through videos that is the number one most important thing to you if you're on instagram checking out butts and cleavage fine but just recognize that is the most important thing to you right now if you're in a podcast studio in los angeles and you're recording a podcast that's the most important thing to you right now if you're checking email that's the most important thing to you right now if you're driving to work that in that moment driving to work is the most important thing to you if you're out running five miles and you're listening to this podcast that is the most important thing to you if you're cooking dinner for your family that is the most important thing to you if you're simply wasting time and you feel miserable doing it well then maybe you might want to change what is actually important to you because whatever you're doing is the most important thing right now yeah matt you know the one thing i'll say uh with todd's question too is he he's talking about wanting the bigger house wanting the nice car and again when you and i were kind of having a conversation about this about this lightning round question um i had mentioned that you know when we when we have the appropriate relationships in our lives like the appropriate like good relationships in our lives a lot of these urges uh they're not as as big so you know uh shameless plug of our book love people use things we talk about seven important relationships yes with people but also with finances also with creativity also uh you know with with the other four four other uh relationships we have in there but the thing is is that when you have healthy relationships in your life you don't look for these shortcuts because that's that's what this is the big house the nice car this is a shortcut to ephemeral happiness and yeah you know what if you had a lamborghini in a multi-million dollar mansion you're gonna feel happy for about six seconds until you gotta like take care of those things until you have to like continue to work to to to uh to maintain those things so todd i would just really encourage you to really focus on those important relationships in your life making sure that those are healthy and then maybe look at these desires because i still you know i'll try in la man there's just like millions and millions of dollars everywhere right yes like i'll drive past the mansion and for a split second you know mariah will be in the car with me and i'll be like that's a really cool house that's a nice looking house man wouldn't it be cool to own something like that but then you know and we can kind of talk about it and you know like daydream about like oh in order to afford that we'd have to like win the lottery or something but then i can quickly dismiss it and say like do i really want that like no i don't want all that extra space what's the cost of that thing yeah there's so much more cost than the monetary cost of it and it's very easy for me to ignore that and i think that has to do with my theory is is because i have a good relationship with mariah i have a good relationship with you i have a good relationship with everyone else who works for us i have a good relationship with my finances and everything so i'm not looking for the shortcuts and todd i would just posit that maybe there's some other things you could focus on first before looking for the shortcuts here's a concise way to look at that because i think you're spot on you have a wonderful relationship a healthy relationship with enough what is enough and you can see those things and you can appreciate them oh wouldn't it be cool to have that house or that lamborghini or whatever but you recognize i already have enough and that might be too much for a whole host of reasons it's a too much money too much insurance too much taking care of the thing too much worrying about the thing all of these additional costs and i think this is the difference between a want and a desire a want is like oh yeah i really want to buy that new range rover wouldn't it be nice to have that a one to some oh that'd kind of be nice to have without me really thinking about the depths of the discontent it might cause a desire however a desire means i'm willing to somewhat sacrifice for that i feel so compelled that i'm willing to devote myself to that and that has nothing to do with a car yeah you can't be it's almost impossibly passionate about buying a lamborghini you might have to get excited about it yeah but passion the root of passion means to suffer so if you're willing to suffer for something that you can devote yourself to then you deeply desire it if it'd just be nice to have that's just a want yeah and you can let go of the want and instead pursue something that is worth suffering for yeah and i want to be clear like there's nothing wrong with having a nice house there's nothing wrong with having a nice car the problem is when it costs you your peace that is and that's where todd's at he's like oh i might i still want to give up my piece for this and that's that's what we're we're really suggesting you look at you know this is parable in the bible that has never made sense to me jesus talks about this man who wanted a pearl he wanted it so badly and he he like he was on the hunt for this pearl and eventually he found one and he dropped everything for it gave up everything for and he was so happy he had this pearl and the parable is like well see god like that but i don't understand that parable with the pearl because it seems so silly to give up everything for one little pro have you heard of this parable at all it reminds me of a sufi parable that's it's fairly similar but it's um where this guy runs into this mystic and and he goes i just you you the mystic had this beautiful like the largest diamond in the world i'm gonna butcher the parable you'll get the the point of and here he goes oh i would do anything to get the that it's the most beautiful diamond in the world my life would be so much better with it and the mystic just hands it over to him says here you go and then so he has it now he's like oh why don't i feel any better and a day goes by a week goes by a month goes by he goes back to the mystic and he goes if i give this back to you will you show me how you can just give it away so easily and so the willingness to let go yeah is really what he was searching for he was searching for the contentment he was searching for knowing he already had enough and he didn't need the biggest diamond in the world or anything else leading up to it because that mystic already had enough oh man there's something there with like letting go of the desire and yeah it's it's like um you don't have to wait to find the pearl or the diamond to to have the willingness to let go like you can skip the difficult part that's right and just focus on letting go you know a lot of times like we have conversations like this and people will um kind of look at it like well this is selfish you don't you know you don't want to just tell people no all the time and you know you don't want to um you know just put your own needs first sure and if you're only if you're putting only your needs first then yes like that's a problem but when it comes to your peace and contentment it's it's totally appropriate to set some boundaries and to set some expectations and i feel like sometimes people are afraid of coming off as selfish but really when you are putting your when you're putting your piece first and you're asking people around you to help with that um that in a way it's i think it's selfless actually yeah and if anything it's self-interested without it being selfish and even if it is selfish so what what's the alternative i'm selfless but miserable yeah right who wants that and so when we're behaving in these ways where your actions align with your values you have a a healthier relationship with those seven relationships you talked about earlier whether it's your stuff or with other people or with the truth or with your finances you have these healthy relationships yes it's self-serving but it's also serving others and what a beautiful symbiotic relationship that is yeah right i got a silly added value segment i want to get to in a minute but malabama you got something for us first here are some voicemail comments and insights from our listeners hi justin ryan this is claudia in santa barbara i have a tip that i thought of when josh was talking about his mostly empty filing cabinet because i remember my mostly empty filing cabinet i realized that this tip might be a little regional and not be as convenient or available to everyone but many banks offer a low cost or even free safe deposit box for their customers i keep all of our important papers and things like birth certificates wills passports and social security cards in the safe deposit box at a bank less than a mile away from our home i replaced my mostly empty filing cabinet with a small clear accordion file that holds copies not originals of what is in the safe deposit box along with one of the keys to the box taped inside those hard copies are mostly for someone else who might need to know where the originals are but another set of copies is saved digitally on my computer another tip is that at that same bank they will take bags of paper to shred so when i have more than a couple of sheets i just take them in and ask them to shred them for me hi this is amanda from bloomington indiana and i have a small tip for maya from the episode 202 by once i purchase food for two people now since i live with my fiance so i started to notice i was spending more in my budget the way i found to keep the overall cost down is to plan out your dinners and meals for the week not necessarily meal prepping ahead of time but just planning out what you want to make every night this helped me get in and out of the store while avoiding picking up extra unnecessary snack items and having a menu helped encourage me to cook at home it also got me more excited about the actual act of cooking so i started looking forward to cooking at home instead of coming home and dreading it and then end up buying something out to eat all right y'all for our added value segment real quick right i'm gonna go into depth on this on the maximal episode have you heard of mewing no there's a doctor from the uk his name is dr mike mew and he specializes in facial posture but joel posture tongue posture in particular oh wow and he has this technique called mewing part of it has to do with hard chewing we've really lost our essence we back in the day 15 000 years ago humans chewed a lot more difficult things to chew whether it was tubers or raw meat or different vegetables that are really fibrous we and now we're like eating smoothies we're not chewing the same way and it's doing terrible things to our jawlines it's the reason you see these epidemics of crooked teeth because our mouths aren't they no longer fit our teeth but if you look at video of like the messiah over in africa they've never seen a dentist in their lives but they have some of the most beautiful big broad smiles and it has to do with you know they're effectively mewing into us and it's a five-step process there's this guy named matt phelps who has a video um about this i'm gonna put a link to it in the show notes but there's also i've been chewing this mastic gum which is 10 times harder than regular gum it has no flavor basically it kind of tastes a little bit like ginger but it's really hard and you chew actually with the front of your mouth anyway check out matt phelps's video if you're interested in this because what it does is you see these people with over the course of a year they totally transform the way their whole face looks not everyone has a big beautiful manly joel line like you i still got crooked teeth and part of that the reason for that is there's a a shrinkage there making more space you actually see people transform their faces anyway we'll put a link to matt phelps's video in the show notes we'll talk a bit more about it on the private podcast this week by the way ryan we have a bunch more surprise questions this week like how do i prepare myself adequately to have uncomfortable conversations with other people how do i establish boundaries with others without being accused of being oversensitive i finally quit my stressful career after 30 years how do i figure out what my next move is plus a million more questions for the minimalists and if you want to hear all that check out the minimalist private podcast this week visit patreon.com the minimalists to subscribe and get your personal link so that our private podcast plays in your favorite podcast app you also gain immediate access to hundreds of hours of private archives recordings of live events exclusive home tours and our private community of thousands of open-minded minimizers like you you can follow the minimalists on tiktok instagram facebook and twitter at the minimalists if you want our podcast show notes in your inbox sign up for our email list at theminimalists.com on behalf of ryan nicodemus podcast sean alabama jordan no more social jess danny unknown emma the immigrant oh we have jacob in here from book light as well i'm joshua fields melbourne reminding you to love people and use things because the opposite never works thanks for listening y'all we'll see you next time [Music] every little thing you think that you need every little thing you think that you need every little thing that's just feeding your greed oh i bet that you'll be fine without it

Channel: The Minimalists Podcast (Old Episodes)

Views: 37,564

Keywords: the minimalists, the minimalists podcast, health & wellness, podcast, minimalists, minimalism, minimal, less, Ryan Nicodemus, Joshua Fields Millburn, JFM, 30 day mins game, 90 90 rule, stuff, clutter, declutter, meaningful life

Id: GY69XJts3h0

Length: 42min 20sec (2540 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 21 2021