When Joshua Fields Millburn's mum died and his marriage ended, all at the same time, it was time for him to reassess his priorities. It's when he found three boxes of his stuff that his mum had kept underneath her bed, he realised that memories weren't in things, but rather in people.
After having climbed the corporate ladder all his life and buying everything he could get his hands on, he decided to get rid of all the stuff he owned that wasn't serving him, in hopes to get to what was.
Meanwhile, his best friend Ryan Nicodemus, who was supposedly living the American Dream and making a six figure salary, was unhappy, border line depressed, in debt and totally unfulfilled. It was by seeing Joshua radically change overnight and looking so happy at work, when in fact he should be miserable given the circumstances with his mum and ex-wife, that the two started talking about what was going on.
It turns out, the answer wasn't more money, or a bigger car, but rather it was discovering the minimalism movement: living a deliberate and meaningful life with less stuff.
That's when they decided to both ditch their corporate jobs, downsize their lives and start their blog: TheMinimalists.com.
That was six years ago.
Since then, they went from 52 readers to 4 million, published three books, launched their own publishing house, delivered a hugely popular TEDx talk, spent a year touring around the world and are now about to release their first documentary, "Minimalism: A documentary about the important things."
When you consider that the average household in the US has 300,000 items, we could all do with a bit of decluttering to bring a bit more meaning into our lives.
In our intimate conversation we talked about:
• What it took to go from 52 readers to 4 million
• What adding value to people’s lives really means
• Why people read and share your content online
• Why you need to surround yourself with supportive people
• How to build the best business model for you
• How not to attach your identity to what you own or what you do
Let me (@markleruste) and Josh and Ryan know (@theminimalists) on Twitter what you took away from our conversation today.