STUFFED: The Unintended Result of Our Attachment to Personal Belongings | Matt Paxton | TEDxBethesda

[Music] [Applause] 1984 I was nine years old I was in my bedroom in Richmond Virginia and this song was playing in my head [Music] I was Danielson I was the karate kid I was ready to do the crane 4 years later I'm in robia Smid 'el school my best friend Shawn Harrington we're preparing for our track meet and he hands me the headphones said this will get you pumped up push it real good all right I did not know that three women from Queens would change my life forever few more years I'm walking in to my dorm first day of college at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg and I hear this song at the end of the hall [Music] lalalalala oh yeah [Music] mrs. Jones I still don't know that song but I still sing it every time I hear on the radio I eventually walked into that room and I met Hilario Ellis guy that would eventually become my best friend and investor in many of my of my companies and the namesake of my third son the cheeseburger not the two bananas we're talking about music here for a minute because that music man it brings us right back where we are I mean and the music is about the memories so I'm the guy from hoarders am I here to talk about music no all right I'm gonna talk about stuff I'm gonna talk about a lot of stuff but just like music the memories attached to our stuff put us right back in a really happy place if you don't know me yet I'm Matt Paxton I am from that TV show hoarders man I have seen it all all right I've seen everything from 300 cats to actually finding Babe Ruth's baseball bats I've been on Howard Stern I've written books I even got to clean out an office with Jimmy Kimmel yeah but I have spent almost 20 years helping people deal with their stuff at a very personal level I'm in the offices I'm in their homes I'm going through their closets I'm going through their memories the one thing I've learned in my 15 years is the stuff actually holds us back we buy the stuff because it brings us happiness but we think it's gonna bring us happiness what I found out is just like heroin anybody might believe me on this all right its short-term gratification it's not long-term let's talk about my hoarders that's a nice little level five hoard it's a much skinnier version to me I need to update that picture all my hoarders they're good people really good people bad stuff has happened to them they're looking for their happiness and self-worth and stuff and it turns out they look for so much happiness they're trying to cover up that pain and so they go to buy more stuff and it doesn't solve that pain all it does is build up and it actually holds them back from living most of my clients they've lost their jobs they've lost their spouses and if they've lost their homes they've lost everything in hopes that they would get it I actually had a lady she collected yarn scams right nut scones scones eats gains in it she had eight thousand things of yarn in her house and she did because she made blankets for babies and she'd give him away and people would say oh you're the best thanks and they'd give her hugs they'd say I love you awesome so she started buying more yarn cuz the boram my yarn she met she bought the more blankets she made the more love she received problem was she couldn't give those blankets away fast enough and couldn't make them fast enough and she actually lost her house because she had so much yard and it actually was the mice that were living inside the yarn that was the problem now I worked on my downsizing seniors this is our grandparents their stuff represents decades and decades of hard work and their self-worth and happiness comes from passing it back down to the next generation the dining room is a great example of this our grandparents my mom and my aunt fought over who got the china cabinet the grandkids we're fighting over who has to take the dining room cabinet alright the problem with all that stuff is I think we got a bunch of money woes in here nobody wants it nobody wants any of that stuff alright and I've learned is the reason our parents held on to the dining rooms well it's because their families their time with their family their loved ones their happiness stuff worth it started in that dining room but now ours is in the family room or it's in a car or it'll go on vacation somewhere else many of my senior clients now they actually can't move out of their house and to see them because they're dealing with their stuff how many of you have your adult children stuff still in your house how many of you still have your adult children in your house right it's kind of a thing all right and a lot of my clients can't move because they're holding on to that stuff they become storage units then there's Gen X that's me and we've spent a long time trying to buy everything for our kids we worked so hard to provide everything for our kids cars schools camps toys clothes books man I spent nine hundred bucks on a cell phone the other day with my grandfather spend nine hundred dollars on a cell phone not a chance he would literally spank me for doing so all right my self-worth comes from buying all that stuff and so I go to work I work really really hard to get as much money as I can to buy this and becomes a pretty bad cycle because I work hard I buy things I miss the things with my kids and I feel bad for not being there so what do I have to do I got to buy more stuff and it's a vicious cycle turns out our kids don't want that stuff they say they do but I found this the other day this was a note that my son had drawn it was actually in his feelings diary and it said lonely and he wrote will someone please play with me my son asked me that every day I said buddy I got to finish this email I just let me finish this real quick and I even justified buddy I keep we can't live in this awesome house I can't buy you all these things if I don't work here so I'll be there in a few minutes I pass off my kid to work so does the stuff holding us back yeah everywhere all right so how do we fix it I can give you a lot of things but it's real simple less stuff equals more time Mo Money mo problems okay 99 problems and my stuff is one okay do I need to keep going alright there's a couple ways out there that we look at do the items spark joy that's a very popular method now and that does work for a lot of people that's great but for me my seniors and my hoarders this doesn't work because the problem is all of it sparks joy that's why I bought it okay that's like saying which which cheez-it do you like I like them all all right minimal um minimalism has has actually come a long way I was really against it at the beginning but the more I study it I mean it's got some real beliefs in there right there core belief is having less stuff leaves room for more experiences and I believe that's true theory on paper I love it but I gotta get rid of my other stuff and that's hard alright how about I just go cold turkey I'm gonna get an RV I'm gonna move out to California I'm a little an organic farm I'm gonna get rid of all of it cuz we think about that every once in a while that's not realistic we live in America we buy stuff that's what we do hmm and then we judge people for did or didn't buy the stuff okay so what do I believe in use it or lose it it's a really simple philosophy if you actually use it keep it because if you don't actually use it guess what you're gonna lose it and I don't mean lose it physical item I mean lose it mentally I've got people to lose in time money space relationships and opportunities every day because they're holding on to their stuff mmm so what are tips well first me you just got to get started I struggle with weight clearly alright this has become an issue for me in my life I've gained 50 pounds over the last five years okay did I do it overnight took me so many five years nice one cheese at a time Hey and you can't clean your house that you've been in for 30 years in a weekend that's not realistic you can go ten minutes that's realistic you can do it call it a ten minute sweep you can clean for ten minutes every night five nights a week could I go walk-in for ten minutes a night every night I should yeah I could I don't so I acknowledge the challenge of that but you can and this is how you get started it's 10 minutes sweep one foot by one foot area that's it you can do that every night all right and once you get brutally honest with yourself this is my closet over there on the right those are size 28 as we move left I go from 28 to 30 s to 32 s I got a long run of 34 s and I got three pair of thirty Six's I'm wearing one of them right now all right three of 30 pants fit me that means 90 percent of the pants and that closet do not fit me can I get rid of some of those jeans there's a pair of black stone wash jeans I got with a Bell Biv DeVoe t-shirt and it was cool back then they have gone from being cool - not cool - ironically cool - not cool again all right it's time to get rid of those all right now I'm using humor on purpose because if you don't use humor and we're talking about stuff you can get really depressing I got families that break up over this stuff right and you're all laughing because you all got a closet like this that's what guestroom closets are for last one last leg lines donate donate donate donate donate this is my belief if you got here today if you're watching this at home guess what your life is better than a lot of people I mean you can donate I promise you I'm working with seniors for a very long time every one of my clients would rather when given the opportunity they would rather give something away than sell it for the money and I had a lady she her husband was a master carpenter in the 40s 50s and 60s and we're cleaning out his toolshed now these are not regular tools that you and I get at Lowe's all right these are masterful things and we had an offer of about thirty thousand dollars for that tool set and her kids really want her to take it cuz I don't who you are that's a lot of money mmm she said man I don't I don't want to sell it he had an apprentice to my son's don't know about his apprentice down the street and it's a really nice guy and he and his wife or starting a family and they don't have any money what do you think can I give this stuff to him I said ma'am it's yours you do whatever you want to do and she said I'd like to be there when he give it to him and man it was like a TV show the baby's crying the mom is crying the husband is crying and his change to it literally changed his life forever that is worth no money there's no amount of money that's as good as actually giving that away donate donate donate last one paper bills books cards pictures I got three young sons I got a lot of mediocre art coming home every single day all right it's fine it's okay but it's not the angle be an artist all right but it's too much all right it's all memories pictures are the hardest I'm telling you stuff is attached to memories reason we can't get yet most people inherit photo albums you know I find pictures from I live in Richmond and I found a lady she had like three carousels full of slides from a trip to Virginia Beach in 1984 so what okay but we feel an obligation to go through all that stuff most of my clients that are moving downsizing move and they say I'm happy to move I'm ready I just got to go through all the pictures real quick I say take the pictures best rule all the pictures is if you don't know the name of anybody in that picture I think it's fair to go right because a lot of times your parents were the last ones that knew who was in the picture right if you are the last person that knows who are in the pictures then this is the tip for you keep 20 pictures that's it I get a ziploc gallon bag and I put 20 pictures in there and I want them to be old pictures you see this lady that's someone's grandma she's hot she's smoking she's hanging out with someone that's not grandpa that's the story your grandkids need to hear not the one of you holding your purse at the zoo yesterday all right this actual picture I had a client where we were showing it to her granddaughter she's like that's not grandpa who is that she said Carl that's Fernando and I'm like I want to know more about Fernando hey and she's like you know I was working at uh at MIT that was our professor they're great dogs you worked at MIT and that's how that daughter found out that her mom was a professor at MIT the pictures hold the stories and the stories are what matter but if you don't tell the stories that's why you got a hold on other stuff so what's visionary about this well I'm a lifelong entrepreneur since I was 23 20 years I've been an entrepreneur I'm tired man I'm really really tired and I'm looking for energy to keep going I got another 20 years of this and it's exhausting and I found a new thing balance I'm not particularly good at it mm-hmm what I found is the stuff is what distracts me as an entrepreneur when I'm looking at buying a car when I'm looking at buying a farm when I'm looking at something else you don't I'm not doing working on my business and I'm not working on my family so I've learned the money that we make we go we begin it all to go buy stuff well me buying stuff is hold me back from making more money no money mo problems hmm now can I put the phone down and say I'm never gonna check my email after 5:00 again I'm not gonna answer the phone no we're in a global economy sorry you gonna be hustling if you're an entrepreneur it's just the way it is I mean so that's not realistic all right now what is realistic use it or lose it right now what do I do I'm gonna clear my physical space and my mental space I do put the phone down at night I go to bed earlier now so I can get up I used to stay up really late and do meals till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and I always somehow watched like a fashion the Furious 6 somewhere along the way there okay or Goldbergs that loses me I'm gone on that okay here's the deal you can't put your phone down you can wait to answer emails in the morning every minute you can't when my son says hey can we play the answer needs to be yes all right we now have a one who no rule any time my son says I want to go play great we play one game of uno and guess what that does gives me a little more balance gives me a little more time and when I'm hanging out my sons guess what I don't need to go do every month go buy a bunch of stuff to make up for the time I'm not there be selfish with your time and be really specific because when you say yes you're creating the memories you're creating the time for your kids to have 13 years from now when you're way going because when I hang out my boys I need to be doing some karate chopping I need to be blasting my 80s rap in the car and I need to be singing a ridiculous song as loud as I can because that is like using my balance and my time with my boys thank you guys I hope you enjoyed it [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 176,930

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Aging, Entertainment, Family, Humor, TV

Id: BOaUjSm-K5I

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 19 2019