0:04
Daily talk show we're in Los Angeles. Yeah, man. What's up guys? Ryan nickname so I've never listened to your show. What's your show? Usually about? Look, we talk about a lot of things. It's a mixed bag. It's a bit of Banta, bit of self development. Be a bit of minimalism, guys. We were in the studio in the last year. Awesome. Yeah with with Josh Melbourne. Yeah, my other half. So for those of you don't know, my name is Ryan Nicodemus. I'm one half of the minimalists. Me and my best friend of like 25 years we've been friends since we were fat, little fifth graders. That little fifth grade, we we have a podcast blog books. Just look up the minimalists and you'll find all that stuff.

0:39
I see you guys wore the uniform. Thanks.

0:44
Sure. You got downstairs in the US? Yeah. Yeah, he's like,

0:49
shoes off only thongs.

0:52
You guys, don't call them songs loincloth and you're talking about the ship faith thing? Yeah, songs are something completely different.

1:00
What did I that you have on? These are Jesus handles? They hit the hit. I

1:04
know, these are they're called zero shoes. It's spelled XERO. And they're like barefoot, I tried to hold them up for the camera, but

1:14
I saw

1:16
you don't post a great deal on social media. No, but you did do one of you in a headstand. Yeah. You broke your back. Yeah, broke my back. So Oh, yeah, man. So snowboarding last January. Yeah. So like just about a year ago and ran into a tree I broke. On this side. On my left side, I broke five transverse process EO every single transfer transfers processing on my lumbar. So the transfers process ER, those are the two little bones that they got from the vertebrae. So I snapped that made them Yeah, well, it's kind of like breaking ribs. So it's funny because every doctor I saw, they're like, if you had to choose how to break your back, and this is the way you would want your back.

1:56
So as you can tell like I'm back at it.

2:00
You know, I've no I mean, I'm still a little numb back there. But I've been taking good care of myself with like massage therapy and chiropractor. We were just talking before we started recording this like how important a chiropractor to have a good chiropractor in your life like that is that's one aspect to like living a healthful life man like staying in alignment. For sure. What was the perspective gain from having an injury like that? Uh, I'm not 25 anymore.

2:27
I just turned 30 a train you don't move. Well.

2:31
I tell you what's really crazy though, is like when I when I hit the tree, I heard Snap, snap, snap, snap. And now I hit the ground and I couldn't feel below my waist. And instantly I was like, Oh, no, like my, my life is like going to be very different moving here forward. But what's crazy though, is that so in that instant, and it really was just an instant because I started to like move my feet to try and move them when I could hear them moving. I just couldn't feel them. I'm like, Oh, that's a good sign. So like, I'm still going

3:00
Be able to move my feet. I just can't feel them right now. But in an instant, right, I did think that like, I might have been paralysed. Like, if you were to tell me earlier in the day, like, hey, Rob, are you if you were to ask me like, Hey Ryan, if you would be paralysed, like how would you felt about like, I don't know my I don't know, I might just like, kill myself. I just be depressed. I don't know. Like, you know, I'd have this. But in the moment, it wasn't that bad. That's good. In the moment. I was just like, oh, like, yeah, I really screwed up my life. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be different, but like, I'll still be all right. Give you there was already to talk about. Yeah, yeah. So do a few episodes on it on the podcast. I think I certainly have had. I definitely talked about it on the podcast at a certain point, but it's funny. You're not actually I was telling someone that storey yesterday they told me the same exact thing. They're like you should record that. I'm like I did record that.

3:44
People feel sorry, Patreon money goes. When when? So the picture you're talking about I was on a on a paddleboard? Yes. Doing a headstand. Yeah. So the stand up paddleboard, we were over down in Redondo Beach if you guys have been in Redondo Beach, beautiful

4:00
Yeah lovely. Yeah so we're down there and

4:03
it's just feel good to be able to like to. I can do everything I can knock on wood that I have before I broke my back like workouts are fine it's still really tight back there like I still to get get a lot of stuff worked out but I'm really lucky and yeah, I'm pretty much invincible know if anything I realised I'm not invincible. We're trying to do first in Los Angeles I think we've never done before our suite, and we went to med men the other night. Oh, nice. You should know that in Australia. It's illegal. Oh, yeah. Did you did you guys? Um, how was it? Did you get like to paranoid?

4:40
We haven't gotten anything but we were talking about on the podcast and we decided that we would do it for the first time. Yeah. Do you have any experience that you can give in regards to dummies First, I'll say about edibles man, okay. And there's what I told Melbourne.

4:53
As I was like, because he because he was looking at him additionally, and I gave him my

5:00
A really strong edible, and I was it was it was like, how many milligrammes? 200 milligrammes for this edible? That was like maybe, you know, like an inch by inch square that was the strongest that we could say online. Yeah, so I mean it was it's the strongest you can get we tried to kill it. No, no, you can't really die from eating too much made man sighs No, it's not from marijuana, right?

5:25
So I was telling Josh I'm like, here's this I'm like, it's really strong. If you like if you cuz he's like I you know, I like

5:32
I've tried you know 30 milligrammes before and it didn't really do anything I said, Okay, well, if you do corner that's 50 milligrammes. I'm like so, start with 50 milligrammes and then you know, go from there, and I said, but I just want to let you know, you might eat too much and think you're going to die. I was like, but you're not going to die. And this is very important that when you think to yourself, I might die from this, you're not going to die. So that's my biggest piece of advice. Long storey short, he

6:00
The 50 in like, he's got a I should let him tell the storey I wish she was here to tell it. He basically had a really hard time like, forgot how to use the bathroom was like really late everywhere. Yeah. Right. It was like he was like, he's like, he's got this great storey about how he like, got up from bed because he had to pee, but he had to, like crawl to the toilet. And he eventually got there. And he stood up and it took, you know, that was its own journey, crawling to the toilet. And then like as he standing there, he's like, and then I forgot how to pee. And then it went and then like, eventually, you know, he got back to bed. And he was like, you know, I was laying there and I he goes, he wasn't worried about dying. He was worried about being scared that he was going to

6:43
die for a couple of blokes who have just done it. Yeah, I mean, how fun and

6:50
yeah, yeah, dude, I mean, I guess you get the munchies. But, you know, my biggest advice is is like no one's ever died from an overdose. And if you feel like you're gonna die, you just have to remind yourself like, you're not going

7:01
How is the laws changed culture in LA in regards to not too much, man. I mean, people are more laid back. I don't know, dude, I really don't I really don't use a tonne of that dude. I think when I first got here, it was like a novelty aspect show like now that I've been here two years. I'm like, I hardly ever, like use marijuana at all. So alcohol, marijuana, you talk openly about like, was it a pill issue that you had? Yeah, yeah, dude. Yeah. Well, I mean, Dayton, Ohio is the overdose capital of the world. I mean, they hand out opiates. They used to, I mean, the laws have gotten better. But 10 years ago, they would hand out opiates, like, Oh, you've got a headache. Here's some opiates. So yeah, long storey short, like I broke my thumb. And I was given a copious amount of opiates. And that's kind of what started me down this path of

7:51
Yeah, dude, just a really dark path of like, taking a pill to make myself feel like I had won the lottery. It's like you just be sitting on your couch.

8:00
Like the OURA? Yeah, yeah, suddenly everything's falling apart. But you're like, Oh, I feel great, but I got it cool. It's it's crazy because like when you start that road,

8:12
eventually the pill stop working, you always have to find something stronger.

8:16
Like if you if taking it is like winning the lottery is coming down off at like losing all your mind. Oh, yeah, it's like, Yeah, that's a great way of looking at it. Yeah, absolutely, man.

8:27
But it got to a point for me where I was like, oh,

8:30
like heroin was the next step. And I really, I saw, like, you know, my life bifurcating one or two ways and I was like, Oh, I was like, I need to go get some out you know, I wouldn't got up and got off of the diamond touch that stuff and years and years and years but and we always be I was I wouldn't like the the withdrawal that coming down from it.

8:50
That I wouldn't I wouldn't not wish that on my worst enemy. Like it is the worst thing I've ever had to go through my life and who around you is Josh there is you know, yeah, Josh was there. I didn't

9:00
I hit it really well. And no one could ever tell. Because you happy from? Yeah, well it's funny because yeah, I mean yeah so So yeah, I can hide it really well and it wasn't until I really found myself like really needing help is when I was like Josh I got a problem Do I Need help? And he was totally there for me and I was very yeah very supportive and it was a long road but totally worth the battle but it is like, God do that again. I would not wish than that on my worst enemy. So what's going on the world when you have an accident, like breaking your back pretty serious? What's the approach day because yeah, so I did get pain post for that. But the thing is, is like, I didn't abuse them, okay. It's the problem is when you if you take them as prescribed, it's not typically I mean, in my experience, and there's certainly exceptions to the rule. But if you take them as prescribed, you know, one pill every six to eight hours, it actually helps with pain. If you take you know, I was taken like 10 at once to get that to try and get that

10:00
That you know that that feeling. And that is where you get hooked is when you're chasing that feeling so yeah, like after I broke my back, I got prescription painkillers, but I took them as prescribed deep. Was there a fee there? Oh, yeah, yeah, actually we have a cabinet, a filing cabinet, the locks, and I made Mariah, like, lock them up and just give them to me. Yeah, not that I ever I just didn't even want to like be tempted. Yeah, but I did I did really well with a man and actually it was kind of a lesson in like,

10:27
I'd like I feel like I've grown up a little bit. You know, I'm not saying I'm not susceptible to ever, you know?

10:34
Because I don't want to sit here and be like, I'm over it and everything's good because like, it's, you know, I feel it that way. But certainly, I'm always going to be cautious. Is there a conversation of the people around you more cautious? I guess you'd like internally you know, how you feel and and whether your headspace in is in the I don't want to get into this. Yeah, it was there any convincing of the doctor or with your partner Mariah? No

11:00
You know, I think Ryan, I talked about it. I talked about Josh a little bit, but But yeah, I mean, there was certainly, I guess there's certainly a little bit of hesitation. But it's, if anything, he just kind of take that, that hesitation and that trepidation and, and make sure you're making as good decision as soon as you can. If I thought I don't know. I mean, if it did become a problem, I would like to think I would just be like, hey, Mariah, flush those down the toilet or something. But it never got to that point I never once felt like I was yearning for because the other thing too is like, you got to think I was taking pills to cover up my unhappiness. Like it was.

11:39
It was something that I used to make myself feel like I was living a different life. But like now, I'm living a good life. I have nothing to hide from now. No, I mean, I'm not perfect. You know, obviously, like, I carry a lot of, you know, a lot of baggage and whatnot. But, you know, for all intensive purposes, there's nothing to run from. Yeah, it works.

12:00
What makes you happy? Oh, I think happiness is kind of a farce, honestly, I think it's like, the the pursuit of happiness is kind of bullshit. I mean, it's weird. My whole life. I remember when I was a kid, and I thought I was like, you know, this genius as a kid. I was like, because growing up, you always hear people talk, what is the point of life? What is, you know, why are we here? And I'm pondering this as a child by seven years old. And all of a sudden, it hit me and I'm like, Oh, the point of life is to be happy. And I was so proud of myself. I'm like, Oh, that's what I got to work towards. But the problem is that when you chase happiness, happiness is ephemeral. So I would, I would say that like a I chased happiness. You know, when I got my sales job and seven promotions and less than a decade and, you know, winning different awards for being the best person, you know, salesperson in my company.

12:56
constantly chasing the bigger paycheck, the new car, different

13:00
vacation you know, I was chasing happiness and I'd argue that I get it every once in a while. I mean I but as soon as I had it, it was like it like slipped out from underneath my grasp and then like I had to reach more so like it's this thing that I never actually was able to grab and hold on to I don't think it ever is man. So what is your North stuff and so my my whole thing is really focusing on living a meaningful life like that. That is to me that's the purpose of life and a meaningful life It just so happens that a beautiful bright byproduct of living a meaningful life is happiness like you do obtain some happiness, but living for happiness because you could take pills and a McAfee you could you know there are a lot of drugs out there that will ostensibly what racist, right? Yeah.

13:51
Yes, yeah, you can eat all the races. Take all the drugs.

13:56
But but then you know, I there's a certain point so we're like

14:00
You're eating the receipts and you're happy. But but it's like only a sad Yeah, right? Well, why you're happy, you start to feel like I'm happy. But I know there's guilt coming. Yeah. So no, the, the the point for me is, is to basically, you know, my short term actions, they align with my long term values and my beliefs and like, that's, if you can do that, like, you're probably going to live a pretty happy life. The problem is that we start to, like, take these actions that are not in alignment with our values, and will sacrifice things. Like, you know, I would, I would be like, oh, I'll work 80 hour weeks, you know, just for a couple years. And then I'll everything I'll have everything figured out or, yeah, I just, you know, my mom lives just, you know, a 15 minute drive for me. I know, I only see her few times a year, I should probably see her more, but I'll get to that, you know, five years. So and we constantly are making these compromises to what you know, our priorities are how much

15:00
That's and then you just you just end up making compromises the rest of your life out geographical location, how much do you think it determines or adds to a level of happiness? Or, you know, the wider community that could be happy? Yeah, of course. I mean,

15:17
see, I like Mariah and I were definitely more mountain folk than city folk. I love living in Los Angeles. It's freaking awesome. I mean, I wake up every morning. I'm like, I am so lucky to live in this city. But we would much rather be in Montana. Because that's my preference. So the reason mountain fog because I mean, we have like country folk in Australia.

15:39
Way city slickers Biddle cyborgs. Yeah, but I think what is what's winning both bodies and mountain folk person? Oh, we just we actually prefer

15:51
I prefer like a less sleep populated area, less conveniences. More

16:00
scenery than conveniences basically. Now LA, you can get some pretty decent scenery. The problem is is like Runyon Canyon, for example, beautiful. Yeah, it's great if you decide to go there instead of 10,000 other people.

16:14
So like, I'm an extrovert. Yeah, I'm an extra I love hanging around people. But I like hanging around the people that I prefer to hang around. And it's not that it's not that I'm, there's not people that prefer to hang out in LA, it's dirt. If anything, there are too many people I prefer to hang out with. I don't have enough time to hang out with all of them. But the problem is, is that there's all the people I prefer to hang out with. And then again, 10,000 other people in the periphery. So um, yeah, I think location Absolutely. Is it can be important and I think people should go out of their way to to, you know, live in an environment that they feel good in that you know, makes them thrive. But here's the thing is like, Melbourne hates Montana. Yeah, like he would you know, someone like him it like think about Montana stress.

17:00
It, you know, like he would be miserable back there. So, the fact that yeah, I mean, you just got to know your preferences are and go for it. But this doesn't make living in Montana right or wrong. It's just it's that's what you know, my preferences. You've been doing the minimalist for how long now? A decade 10 years. Yeah. So we're planning to the daily talk show for 10 years. Okay, so you're a great person to ask, what what should we be expecting when taking on a long term partnership? Dude, you know, it's I was just actually going to ask you like, so in 10 years, like, Is that is that when you're allowed to be happy now? Well, I think it's or is it over after 10 years? Well, we don't know which bit we know that we're committing to. Yeah.

17:45
Yeah, I am jealous about the finishing point and more about shooting for something to then be able to so yeah, no, I totally understand that. But it's funny how like,

17:57
Josh and I got a document and we have a book

18:00
There are a million other things for us to do. But like I'm not even looking at that stuff right now. Yeah.

18:06
So I would just, I would say,

18:09
look at your projects on like a yearly basis or six month basis. Think it 10 years out stresses me out, too. Yeah.

18:19
10 years though, which is impressive. So for you, it was the incremental year. Yeah. And then you end up sorted out, we were just going to do the blog. And then people are like, Oh, you're the minimalists. You should write a book on minimalism. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, that makes sense. So they were a book. And then we went on tour with the book. And then we wanted to read another book. And then we want to read another book. Then Matt Davila came to us. He's like, hey, let's do documentary. You're like, Oh, that sounds like a good idea. So it's not that we've been flying by the seat of our pants. That's absolutely not it. The thing is, is that when we got into this work, there were things thrust upon us to put on our plate and we can choose whether or not we want to put those things on our plate. So the opportunities do

19:00
tight, what ended up but it's because Tommy and I, our growth has been slow we've been building over time, but it's not like it's never felt like our we've been given this crazy opportunity based on something that's happened.

19:15
Yeah, so I'm just curious about that getting through the 23456. Like it's a long time. I mean, Josh and I, we look at it in like a year or maybe two year increments. So we have one big, big project that we're working on each year that we're focusing on. Right now. It's our documentary, we have a book coming out, because we've signed a deal. It's gotta be out like 2021. So that'll be next year, although we're still working on that this year, but just some overlap, because this documentary we've been working on for three years. takes time. Yeah. I mean, that actually, I know this has nothing to the question, but let me say some about this documentary. Yeah, we recorded everything. Last last January, January of 2018. Well, we bumped in to Josh

20:01
Just on it was right at the whole foods are walking along.

20:06
And this was just after like it would be eight months after we'd sort of hung out. And he was like, I think you're at the stage of you just shot the thing in a beautiful warehouse. Yeah. Beautiful warehouse had it had a crowd in there. And then like Matt developed did his thing with it, which, for what he had, it was the best that could have been done with that footage. But it was like it was it just was not. We were super excited about him. It was like a comedy special without the comedy. So it's like it was just like this. There's something there was just something that wasn't it just didn't feel right. So we scrapped the entire thing. And like there is some things from that footage that Matt got that we will use. But by and large, like we're redoing the whole thing was that hard? Yeah. Well, I mean, see Josh and I, we don't have any expectations with any of our works. The only

21:00
expectations we have I guess it's not expectations. It's we have high standards. So we keep our standards high, we keep our expectations low. So when something like that does happen, it's not like, oh, but we're planning on like, this was our paycheck. Like that, wasn't it? And what about between yourself and Josh? What how does that trend? How does that situation play? Is it like a small conversation? Is it not happy? I mean, it was a conversation me, Josh and Matt got on the phone. And I was like, so what do you think? And I was like, What do you think? No, I told him exactly what I just said. I was like, Matt, you did a phenomenal job with what we gave you. But what we gave you was not very great. And he was like, Whoa, and it was just, you know, we just kind of talked it up between the three of us and but I tell you, what do you like letting go of that it actually feels really good to just be able to kind of let it go and be like, okay, we're not going to sit here and beat yourselves up. We're going to start over. We've got because, you know, again, if Josh and I were like Oh,

22:00
We're gonna just got to be filming a January match got to have edited by February and then we gotta go sell this thing. We got it, we got to pay rent. Like that's the position we've never put ourselves in. Coincidentally, our minimalist lifestyle has helped us get to that spot. I mean, it's funny because like, my secret is people ask, like, What does minimalism really do for you? And like, I mean, to kind of be cheeky, it's like, my secret is I spend less money than what I make. And I started doing that 10 years ago. So I don't, you know, I'm not sitting here and you swarmed in debt. So we have the opportunity, we have the freedom to be like, yeah, you know what, we're going to spend another year on this project that was supposed to be done last year, but we're going to spend another year on it, because that's what needs to be done. I think high standards, I think we hold high standards for the stuff we do, which, on the other side of that is quite a lot of pressure. Personal pressure on the projects we're doing right, the team pressure, is it? Yeah, those pressures come from expectations. Yeah. So you know, if you could, if you can keep those expectations as low as possible. There's gonna be some

23:00
Right. Um, but ultimately, like the lowest, the lower, you can keep your expectations I mean, the happier you're going to be with results. But the key is you have to have high standards, you can't have listed as a low expectations and then yeah, I mean, it's gonna everything's gonna fall apart really quick, like the difference between standards and expectations standards is, are you happy with it? Are you happy with the quality? Have you done the work that you can do to make this creation as best as possible? What else can you do to that creation to make it great, and then you let it go. And then if it might, you know, might fly away and get shot out of the sky real quick, but if you feel good about it, like that's what matters, man. And that's how Josh I've been approaching this whole thing. It's like, you know, we write for us, like, anytime we read anything, record a podcast, it's, you know, like, how would I talked to Ryan, and I know there's at least one other Ryan's out there.

23:51
And so in terms of audience, because I hear a lot of people saying, and I think we do this and we make this show for us, we do something that we can do.

24:00
sustainably, and show up every day. When you think about audience, and then the feeling of we write for us, where's the consideration? Or is what you guys have you identified as you guys? And how you create is what the audience has been resonating with and connecting? Well, I mean, there's, you want to respect the audience to a certain level. But ultimately,

24:24
like, what I mean by that is, is like, I'll try to cuss as little as possible. Because I want to respect your audience. Is that a new thing? No, no, no, I mean, we a little bit, ya know, we said we cut sometimes, but I mean, it's more about like, I probably not thinking about it would cost more because that's just how I was raised. When you know, school. I mean, that's just like, it's in my vernacular, I'm not proud of it. It just is but to the extent of curse words, that's where I'm like, Okay, I'm going to respect the audience. And I'm not going to sit here and hustle up because there's kids, listen, I know parents are like, Hey, come on, listen to this. And it's you know, so like,

25:00
That's but that's to the extent you know like I'm not going to wear a loincloth and do you know and do our talk yet out of respect actually I probably wouldn't want to be alone

25:10
but but by and large that we don't you know we're not recording things we're not writing things to be like oh you know this one thing was man Josh is Josh is house tour was really really popular we should start talking about only apartments and minimalist apartments and that's going to get us the most views I mean right now if you go to YouTube those that is the most views it's Josh has minimalist apartment or and I guarantee if we started doing some kind of a static apartment like we maybe we get more views maybe we get more subscribers, but then I'm doing it for them not for you know not for people who who are like me that that's why we started the website is because when I was going through when we're going through our all of our minimalism journeys, I'm like, dude, there are people out there who are just like us and they need to hear this.

26:00
That is who I talked to that is who we talked to people who were kind of experiencing you know are going through the same thing it's evolved much past that as a creator How is sort of woke culture affected what you guys do? Oh, you know what dude like I'm pretty

26:18
I'm pretty

26:21
sensitive myself pretty woke myself.

26:25
Call me Ryan woke naked Demas. No man. I mean, it's people give us a hard time every once in a while about something small. I can't remember the last time in fact, even if I did, I wouldn't even want to talk about it because I feel good about what I do. And like I very much go out of my way to consider other people's,

26:42
you know, emotions. And I mean Case in point is just the cursing thing. Yeah, that is being considerate. Like I I can look in the mirror and be like, okay, Ryan, to say fuck every other word. It's a like, people aren't gonna hear your message. Just gonna hear the F word.

27:00
Yeah, and be like it's offensive to some people. And yeah, like I so I feel like I go way out of my way to like is to not offend anyone and yeah, of course there's going to be because that's the culture we live in a culture of outrage. Yeah. But yeah, I mean it's it's like if someone tweets me something I'll just I just got a mic there seagull man like they're just like flying by Yeah, they're shooting on my stuff and then they fly away. And why would I ever like a seagull actually shit on me. I mean what I mean yeah, you know, writing back i'd wipe it off. Yeah, I'm not gonna like chase the seagull down. Yeah.

27:38
I'm not gonna sit there like, go to bed at night glue. Let's go like I'm gonna just, in fact, when I was in Australia, we were in at Heron Island. Yeah. And I think the ratio of birds to people is like literally like 1000 birds to one person that's there now. And you are app you are going to get shit on every day. It's Twitter.

27:58
Twitter, right and you know what, every time

28:00
Aircraft male just like I am so lucky to be on Heron Island. I guess it's so nice to be on here. Another thing, it's good luck, right? Thanks, shadow. Yeah. But it's the same thing in Twitter. Like, it's like people might shoot on our work. But there is a difference, though, between criticism and feedback. If someone's trying to give me feedback. Hey, Ryan, you cost too much in that episode. I wanted my five year old to listen to that, but we're really trying to show them the importance of cuss words. And you said the F word about 20 times. So unfortunately, I can't play that episode from my five year old that that is feedback. Criticism is like, Hey, man, you didn't you know, you didn't whatever. It is a I'm trying to think of some work so

28:40
I guess people love calling out when they think you're not being a minimalist. Yeah. Curtis it Yeah, that's exactly i criticism is like, Hey, man, like what you do, but I saw that you fly an aeroplane so you're not a minimalist, and, and it's like, Okay, if that's how that person feels. What am I gonna What am I gonna fuck

29:00
piracy go.

29:02
Yeah. And so what about between you and Josh? feedback? How do you feel about dude? No, we, him and I are very good about being radically honest with each other.

29:14
We are, it's weird because we both play this, like, mentor to each other. And so that makes us both mentees to each other. And I think that's why what we do work so well is because it's like this good Yin and Yang. I mean, nothing he ever like he knows. And that's just because we've known each other since we're, you know, in the fifth grade. I'm never going to just criticise him for the sake of criticism. Like if I say something to him, he knows his feedback, and vice versa. Do you catch yourself like say,

29:43
Tommy and I were talking the other day, and I felt that he wasn't being empathetic in the moment. And I catch myself caught myself

29:53
pulling him up on shit. And I was it was me not being empathetic. Like I was almost doing a beer projecting it. Yeah.

30:00
I picked up and I was like, Oh, this is what I'm doing. And we had like a great conversation. Yeah. And it was like, it was all good. But I think that's a sign of like, a sign of a good partnership when you can kind of be honest with each other. And even like, um, I mean, Josh, I don't like really get into fights. But if we ever have and I'm wrong, like, I'm even with Mariah, you can ask her, it's like, you know, it'll be later in the day after we had a, you know, some kind of disagreement. I'm like, Oh, you know what, like, I was wrong. And I have no problem admitting that I'm wrong. And like that, that's going to make for good relationships in general. I mean, think about what you want out of a relationship and you want to trust someone, you want someone to be genuine. You want them to be consistent. You want someone to show you respect. Like that's whether it's romantic, whether it's partnership, well, this friendship, like that's what you want out of relationships. So if you can do those four things, like you're going to get along with a lot more people but not me. I'll get back to you then.

30:53
A lot of the content is obviously around minimalism.

30:58
How do you deal with the moments where

31:00
It's obviously a lifestyle that you live. Do you have moments been like, I can't be fun talking about minimalism. Oh, yeah, dude all the time. It's so funny. Like, I love having meaningful conversations. Yeah. But like, I have friends in LA, who, I don't know what they do for a living. And they don't know what I do for a living. I've just met them at random places and we're friends and we hate you.

31:24
Right, right. Exactly. No, no. So like, my buddy. He the other day, he was like, dude, I just, I saw the minimalist stuff come up. He's like, you're one of the minimalist. Like, yeah, he's like, we should have conversations. I'm like, dude, I like hanging out with you because we don't talk about minimalism. What are you talking about? And it's not that I don't like talking about minimalism, but like, the thing is, is like I do that for work constantly. So I this is the vibe at the strip is

31:54
Randy's candy. I'm like, No, I'm pretty comfortable with my life outside of this.

32:00
Here's the thing man is like To put it simply I have a life outside of minimalism. Yeah. And some people yeah they I guess they the worst question is like, I was I was I forgot where I was and this girl was like arguing in the middle is she's like so what's your favourite thing about minimalism?

32:17
I was like, please

32:20
What do you What's your anybody talk about what's the

32:24
play? oh no we play board games dude his dad is a screenwriter we talked about like you know a lot of his like the the the world that he was part of the Hollywood world that he was part of we talked about what do you plan containers? Yeah,

32:41
we need to set some time aside for civilization. I've never played the computer game so civilization a that now? I've only played the board game. But the board game it's like an eight hour game for for people especially if they're new. Yeah, like it's definitely like an eight hour board game but it's so much fun. So yeah, I mean, we just like yeah, we just talked about he went to Burning Man recently. He was telling me about that experience. I mean,

33:00
You know, just we just talked about our everyday lives. And that's it. Like, we're friends, we have commonalities, same interests, so we're just constantly talking about our commonalities and same interest. Sometimes minimalism comes up and I am happy to talk about Don't get me wrong, but But to your point, like I don't just always talk about minimalism, finding being able to find a job where it can be a part of your life to a huge extent means that the job doesn't feel as much like a job, but then you don't want to be you don't want to be your job. Yeah, it's like asking Uber drivers like how long you been doing this for you know what that's appropriate though, because like you are, you're in their car as they're working. Yeah, sure. would be like someone coming on my podcast wanting to talk about minimalism and me being like, let's not talk about that. Yeah, I do love talking about gay love to

33:48
make it your who you are you being so here's the thing is that first I want to go back to what you said about if you do something you love, you feel like you're really not working.

33:59
That is true to

34:00
accent meaning, I feel really lucky I don't have a boss, but I work we work a lot, dude. So there's something in Western culture, you know, there's this idiom that goes along some something like, if you find a job you love you never work another day in your life. Yeah, bullshit. That might actually happen to somebody. Like, I'm not saying that, you know, there's always an exception to the rule. But that's a really bad expectation. Because what happens is, is you'll find something you're passionate about, you start to make money from it, and then you start to resent it, because then you have to do it to make the money where when you did it before making money, you just did it in your free time. And it was, it was fun to do. I heard a great adaptation to that which is like, you know, if you find something you love, you never work a day in your life, but you also never get a day off. Right? Yeah, that's good. That's great, man. That is true. So So yeah, like, for me the work I do. It is an alignment with my values. And like it doesn't actually even more important, because because not everyone can just you know, become a minimalist.

35:00
blog and podcast. Like what I do doesn't go against my values. So the whole idea for Josh and I was to like, pay off debt, get rid of stuff, sell my house, sell my car, you know, just get to as little debt as possible. And then I was going to be go be a barista man. Like, that was my goal. barista, I mean, I do love coffee. Don't get me wrong, but like, I could have found a company that I liked. I could have just, you know, paid the bills. But really, the idea of being embraced, it wasn't about like, Oh, I'm going to be a priest and like, it was about getting my time back. So I think that is how you balance. You know, if you're doing something that you're passionate about, you still have to have time outside of that. to cultivate other things. I mean, dude, if I if I was only passionate about minimalism, that would really bummed me out, dude. Like I'm passionate about so many more things snowboarding, surfing, longboarding? wakeboarding, anything with the board except waterboarding.

35:57
What's water

36:00
I

36:02
actually imagined like water, but like I mentioned, like, it's like, yeah, it's not skateboarding.

36:08
But no dude, like, I have so many other passions outside and that I think that's the key to like maintaining a balance between like what you do for work as a passion. And then, you know, having other passions to cultivate outside. And that's the other thing too is like we're not born to do one thing. So if you ever find the one thing that you were meant to do, you're screwed. Like the dude who invented the Polaroid, you know about the storey? No, actually, the guy who invented the Polaroid camera, his whole thing was like, I just want to make an invention. It's going to make millions of dollars, and it's going to help millions of people and he got there by like, 4040 he killed himself. After like, five he wasn't long enough because he was like, Well, that was one thing I meant I was meant to do when I did it. And now I have nothing else to live for. And like the he's the other thing too is he saw digital coming. Right? Right. But here's the thing to man is like, let's say you you're all right. I'll use myself if I am really interested in snowboarding and then I

37:00
Go out and I become professional snowboarder, and I went all the gold medals and all the contests, okay? Like the human brain is designed to like, move on to the next thing. Like we master something, we move on to the next thing, Master something move on to the next thing. I have no chance of becoming a gold medalist. Like I understand that. But But what I'm trying to say though, is like that.

37:22
There it is, it is a really, it's a big bummer. If you have only one thing that you're passionate about in your life, the key is like to have a lot of interests, cultivate maybe some of those into passions. If you can find a job that you know, great it like your interests are included in there and your passions are included. They're great, but that again that's also can be a double edged sword. When it comes to work, man, it's just like find something that you know, you can go to work and you're not killing puppies, you know? You can do something like that. And that's unless your event right? Yeah, I was just talking about hobbies like a we need, like we missing hobbies and our lives. Are we missing hobbies?

38:00
I don't know me like a miss Nabis.

38:04
I mean, the, I sometimes think about the things that bring me the most joy have the most fun skateboarding, all these things. And then I think about how often I do them. And so I might think I love them, but I don't do them as much as I feel like I love them. Yeah. And so a friend of ours, he's a, you know, he'd made a lot of money last at all, and, and he now speaks about, he's sort of rise back up and understanding that it's not all about the material stuff is, you know, similar messages to them to what you guys do. But he's so convinced, and he talks to these big corporates that don't have any hobbies in their life. Like they're not finding an outlet outside of what they do, which I guess is that means like, I guess maybe you can find meaning through hobbies. Yeah, I mean, I think again, like we are, we are content, we're happy. We feel, you know, like we're living a meaningful life. When we are I want one of the pieces of

39:00
When we are growing, and when you are, you know, for me, I was in a sales job, which I was really passionate about a first man like it was great managing sales people. Like there were pieces of it I liked Dude, I was a really good sales guy. Like my whole thing was is because what was a day in the life back then?

39:17
Well, I mean, I had so many promotions, mantels different day there.

39:21
But the thing is, is like when when I would think of sales people, you know, before I became a salesman, it was like kind of this icky feeling like I gotta talk to the sales guy. But then when I was a salesman, I was like, wait a minute, like people want to be sold. People need help. They just want you to be nice and they want you to be honest, and they want to be up front. So like I really enjoyed what I did, but I mastered it. But unfortunately I had made my life to where that's all I had time to do was to work so you were selling cell phones me Oh, yeah, yeah, cell phones and internet and

39:51
it was a coal if I was a customer.

39:58
don't even remember

40:00
Remember

40:02
I getcha already so he's such a good salesman he's trying to get me to say

40:09
Do you remember the handset? Like a fucking Nokia or Motorola or yeah dude, we yeah we had all those except for iPhones because we had a regional carrier and we weren't big enough to buy enough iPhones and so they would they wouldn't sell to us because we weren't we were we were small fish. So you probably had an understanding of not tricks but not even manipulations but the psychology the psychology of sale.

40:33
Sales is like you have to you have to be talking about something that you really believe in and then you have to show people the benefits of Hey, this is why I like this thing. You might like it for this reason to like that's all sales is so not me. That's what it gets what good sales so yeah.

40:53
I thought it was in a movie saying write it down on a piece of paper and slid it across the table. And I said

41:00
What is this? I said, My that's not what you just said. He was just like, it was out of control. Oh, bad styles. It was about me taking the skills because you said it was, you know, something that you were good at. You found it as one of your skill sets. Well, this, but the skill set, though, is just being able to have an honest conversation about something. So yes, I have honest conversations right now. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's, well, the other thing too, is public speaking, like, managing a bunch of people that I mean, that's totally honed in some public speaking stuff. It's like, you know, I can go in front of a crowd. So like, the first time we ever did a tour, and you know, just people in front of us I was already used to speaking in front of people. So yeah, there's certainly things that I took from that corporate world that I really managing is a you know, another skill that I took from there. So yeah, there's certainly even, you know, the worst job I've ever had.

41:56
There was still something I could take away from him. Yeah, but still goes like, Man

42:00
You probably live a happier life, if you can look back at something you hate and be like, you know what, though, that actually did give me this and that, like, you're probably going to live a happier life, people who might be telling themselves the storey of, you know, I want to sort of downsize, I want to do the things that you do get out of debt, sort of remove that congestion in my life. But I can't do it until I get a rise. All right, until I have a plan. Yeah, you're not gonna you're not going to listen to any of Josh nice podcasts, or this podcast, and then get the magic answer to be like, Oh, I can quit my job tomorrow and start a blog and be okay. Like, that's never the case. I mean, what Josh and I do is we talked to people about dealing with these impulses, how to have good habits in your life so that you can work towards a plan that will ultimately get you to where you want to be. I mean, yeah, I had a packing party and got all my stuff packed up dude. And literally, like Josh came over and had boxes and boxes everywhere and I unpacked

43:00
things as I needed it for three weeks. Literally everything dude, like every single The only thing we did so annoying I know it was was fun though, man cuz like we called it the packing party. She was ice.

43:12
Josh doesn't drink but I was just like, you know had some beers and like whatever couple pizzas and it was great man. Um, no boom boxes, the furniture we had to cover because like, you know, you can't put that in boxes. But, uh, after those three weeks, I had just had like, this realisation of like, oh, there's 80% of my stuff still sitting in the boxes. Like, there's something there's a there's something wrong with this picture. And that was the whole, you know, the precipice of the minimalists. Um, but yeah, I mean, that wasn't certainly I didn't just quit my job after that. I was like, oh, packing party. Now I can quit my job. It was like, it just helped me realise all of these things I brought into my life to make me happy. There were thousands of dollars that could have been went towards debt could be in my retirement account. So I was like, Oh, I had

44:00
To start making different decisions, so then I started making different decisions. And then I got laid off about I don't know, a year later after, after that packing party year and a half later after the packing party so for someone who's trying to do what we do, yeah, it's really simple, but simple and easy man. Like simple as simple as what eat what is easy as going with the flow. That's what's easy. Simple is simple as deliberate. And I think we, you know, too often confuse simple with easy so, yeah, anyone can absolutely pay off their debt can have a nice retirement, if they're not making decisions today that are getting them, you know, taking them down that path, they have to start making different decisions and anyone can make different decisions, man, what's what's your relationship with social media? Um, it's a tool man. Social media is.

44:52
It is whatever you make of it. Um, I can sit here and tell you why I love Twitter. I could sit here and tell you why I hate Twitter.

45:00
I think with anything in our lives, it's about finding a balance and making sure that the tools we have in our lives, we're using them appropriately. You know, find a hammer and hammer and a nail. Great. If I'm hitting you over the head with it not great. It's the same tool. Yeah, just you know, so I look at social media the same way.

45:19
Could you imagine it's just everyone was on the train looking at their hammer.

45:24
walking across the street and hammer.

45:26
Yeah, it is weird. We know it's we're living in some strange times for sure. And social media is, it is doing something strange, because I'll tell you what, just the smartphone in general.

45:38
I will sit down in a movie theatre to watch a movie. And I'm like, I had to talk myself out of grabbing my phone. And I don't even know why I'm grabbing it. It's like, I don't know him. Even as one of the minimalists man like I struggle with it. Again, like there's no magic answer that's going to like take care of all your problems. It's, it's about

46:00
Acting, you know, these the tools we have these things we have available to us, and learning how to deal with all the impulses that come along with that. And I think if you can learn how to deal with those impulses, it's much better than getting rid of them anyway. A lot of people need to make hard cuts, or they think they need to make hard cuts. So for me, quit alcohol this year. I thought I wasn't even you know, I wasn't even drinking that much. But I drink most weekends is what I done since I was 13. But I saw cutting it off as the Why are you happier? Yeah. I think we're better. I think we're doing more. I'm enjoying taking care of myself more. I think I'm a better husband, a better business partner. So I see the benefits. Drinking fun drinking makes you feel good, right. But that I know is not forever. You have a drinking An hour later. you're sober. Yeah. A lot of people are cutting out things. I know Aubrey Marcus, he's quit six for six months. There's a bunch of things that do this is like some weird I just saw this thing today.

47:00
It was like Silicon Valley.

47:03
dopa mean fasts type of dope. I mean fast so like, basically they try to they they will not they'll Yeah, they will not do any activity you can think of associated with dope. I mean Sex, drugs, alcohol, partying watching TV. Like they literally like try to fast this house from dope. I mean, I don't know, man, I if you guys haven't heard about that, look it up.

47:28
It's crazy. Yeah. Well, I mean, fast. You should have put a stop to a certain lifestyle in the past.

47:35
Where do you see it going with these cats? And what do you what do you interpret in people quitting stuff? Is it the answer of making a hard cut? I think I think if you can master balance, like that's probably the secret to life.

47:49
It's ever easy to do, especially when everything is at your fingertips and everything is in your face. Like I often think about if I moved out to LA at 25 years old, it would have probably chewed me up and spit me out in but like now

48:00
Going down the roads I've gone down and the lessons I've learned I can live in LA. And like it doesn't faze me. I mean I still see Tesla my god I love to have a Tesla but ultimately the Tesla no but I get one now here's here's fucking lace here yeah

48:15
but here's but here's here's the thing about a Tesla is like I know that I'm lying to myself when I say oh I would enjoy la more if I had a Tesla Oh traffic wouldn't be as bad I can you

48:28
do it man you'd be able to fucking

48:31
it'd be great I think four or five No worries. Just get it done. Yeah, I guess the bill like it would be it would be here's the thing is okay, I'll give you an example. Josh. I've had a dream I got a Tesla. I had a dream that like I did. I was like, you know, screw it. Yeah, I like auto accident I dipped into I dipped into my Yeah, I dipped into my house fun. Yeah, I paid cash for Ben. Yeah, like that's a problem to unpack. Cash is like, right on. So I had the Tesla and I was in my dream. I was just

49:00
driving it. And the feeling I had it was, I guess for grant would be the best way to say it. It wasn't regret. Like I said, Why did I do this? I just remember being in my Tesla, and I was like, This is cool. But like, you know, I it didn't make me as happy as I thought it would. And I think that is actually what we do in our lives. We lie to ourselves. And we say, Oh, I'd like Personally, I would enjoy la more if I had a Tesla. But as soon as I bought a Tesla, yeah, I'd get a little bit of maybe a little bit of dopamine, but I'm expecting that much dopamine. Yeah. And I only get like a little bit and that's I think that's a symptom of something that we do in Gen. So is it almost a scared of things where you have high expectations? Yeah. And yeah, I guess yeah, totally goes back to so maybe if it was like, You know what, I'm going to get the Tesla. I've got high standards. It's a quality car, right. I am going to enjoy it. But I realise it's not going to change my life. Yeah. However, I'm going to do everything I can to do the things and I want to be the guy with the test.

50:00
Well, that goes on road trips. I'm not knocking anyone who has a nice car who has a test. I don't have it too. I would love a test. Yeah, but I'm just saying, like, for me, the reward is not as much as my brain is telling me it is. But I only know this because I've been doing this for the last. I've been talking myself out of things for the last 10 years. And that's really like, what minimalism has helped me do. It's not like, buy our books, listen to our podcast, watch a documentary and you're going to not want to, you're not going to want to buy anything ever again in your life. Like it's just learning how to deal with those impulses that we constantly get, and I've done such a good job and it built such good habits and of dealing with those impulses that now. Yeah, the Pokemon goes off thinking about get a tussle, but I'm like, it's really not it even again, having that dream. I felt like I was there. I felt like I was there driving it. I mean, I did not realise it was a dream till I woke up and I was like, Oh, that's interesting. Like, I had a Tesla.

50:52
And even in my dream, I was like,

50:55
so interesting, because I get it. I do. I like it. I think that like we do that with old

51:00
Different types of the idea that we my white, like, once I get to this white, if I'm like, if I can fit, I'll fit into these clothes. And then I'll be able to do this and that and I'll feel better you ever heard object a? No? Do there's a great podcast Rob bell. And Peter Rollins did this podcast is all about object de object day is this thing. It's, we tell ourselves if we get x if we lose enough weight, if we get a Tesla, if we stop drinking for a year, we tell ourselves like that's what we need to complete our life. That's what's going to make us happy. And as soon as we get it, then there's a different object day. And Peter's whole thing is, and I'm only using his name because like I don't want to these are not my thoughts these metres off. But this whole thing is is like, the secret to life is that there is no secret. And if I guess if I could just add to that, like

51:53
think about um, I've been watching the politician. Have you seen this enough? So good. So there's a

52:00
analogy in the show where this woman she's like, Oh, you know life is a shit tornado. And it's got a little bits of gold in it. And you gotta like you gotta figure out how to live in this tornado and shit grab these little bits of gold. Yeah, but I was thinking about like literally being in a shit tornado. And I thought to myself my whole I would be like trying to get tried to be saying shit free as much as possible. And then I had this epiphany where I was like, you know life is this shit tornado take the gold out of it life is a shit tornado, and it's not about trying to keep as much shit off of you as possible. It's being able to like look in the mirror covered in shit and being like, this is all right, this isn't that bad. I love you know what I'm saying? I could imagine a reenactment fee and you documentary in a tornado. Yeah, but that's I mean, but that is that's just said, man. It's like not being able to fit in your clothes. You should be able to be happy with not being able to Nicholas. I mean, there are health. There are some health things or some you know, I mean, I'm not gonna when do we believe the storeys

53:00
We tell us how so for me, I was thinking for the year of no drinking, it's going to give me the best shot. I think we have to make the best of this business, this new partnership, the podcast, my marriage, all these things. And when do we actually believe the storeys? Well, like, I guess minimalism in some way for a lot of people is that object I? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it could be men. But here's the thing is like not drinking for a year, maybe you were looking at it and thinking that, and this is possible. There are people out there who alcohol takes away, it inhibits them from fully, you know, them committing to a relationship or business projects, or whatever it may be. Maybe it is distracting. And I think that it is important to believe, yeah, you might have heart disease or something. And you're like, Oh, I gotta lose weight because I have heart disease. Yeah. So I think what minimalism helps us do though, is it helps us to really kind of choose what those what the important things are, instead of thinking that everything that we feel like is important is important.

53:56
Makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's a filter for life. I think that that's the other thing is

54:00
It's not like, minimum minimalism looks different for every individual, which I think is cool. Yeah. Your Netflix Darko minimalism.

54:10
It was amazing. I actually saw it before. It was on Netflix. That's my little claim to fame. I went to a cinema in Melbourne and did the whole remember where it's like, when you gather? Yeah, you know?

54:24
Yeah, that's what we did. Yeah, it's so funny cuz hindsight like we did. We did all these like film festivals, we moved to theatres and like, we would have cut all that out. We would have just went like straight to Netflix straight to Vimeo. It didn't even really yeah, I mean, Netflix only picked it up because it was on Vimeo. And you know, they were like, oh, like, this is people are watching this will Yeah, let's have it on Netflix. So yeah, it's just funny thinking about that. Because it was such a pain in the ass to get that in the theatre. Yeah. Like I just was not emotionally to it. Yeah, but you know, you learn your lessons of business and so the the new documentary Have you got a title for it? Is it minimalism too? It's less is now less is now. It's

55:00
dim the documentary and

55:03
if you got a book called ER book that we're working on is Oh no, I'm so the books we have right now is minimalism live a meaningful life. That's the first book we wrote Josh and I, we talked about what our foundational values are. And then from the foundational values we have built off of that over the last 10 years. We have a book out there. It's a collection of essays. And it's, you can get all of those essays on our website for free. But we just kind of took the best of and like condensed it into one book. And then we have everything that remains, which is a nonfiction narrative of Josh and i going from, you know, suit and tie corporate guys to minimalists. And then we have a book that's coming out in like 2022 called I'm sorry, 2021. That's called love people use things. And then the documentaries less is now awesome, and that'll be out next year. Yeah, we got a lot of it's funny cuz hindsight. It's like, wow, we got a lot of stuff, man. Yeah, but when we started

56:00
It wasn't like okay, we need to do three books. Yeah, we got have two documentaries. We gotta do the fourth book by 2020. I mean, this is these are things that again opportunities that have presented themselves and we're like, oh yeah, well we can take that and put it on our plate and we can create something meaningful. Awesome, man. I love your outlook on life and that you don't take it too seriously.

56:20
You just can. If when you start taking it too seriously, man, it's just I don't know. I don't believe in reincarnation, but

56:27
I feel like if you take life too seriously, like you're gonna die and come right back.

56:33
Do it again. Right But he learned nothing. And then the daily talk show if you've enjoyed the show, feel free to share it on Instagram height, the daily talk show.com is the email address. Definitely go check out the minimalists on Apple podcast as well. You guys are smashing it with the podcasts. You can go to the minimalists calm and everything is there. convenient to auto show cinema guys. So you guys see it