Transcript

#857: How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 — New Tips from Maria Popova, Morgan Housel, Cal Newport, Craig Mod, and Debbie Millman

0:00 Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. I'm recording this intro on the road. I have a bunch of very unusual stops around the world that I'll fill you in on another time, but right now Let's get down to brass tacks. We have a different format from my long form interviews. Many of us And this includes me, sometimes, feel like we're drowning in complexity, whether that's in boxes, oh my God, another app, another this, another that, or decisions, decision fatigue. Perhaps you're even slipping in and out of overwhelm. It happens.

0:32 Maybe you're overcommitted. You need to renegotiate. I have been there. Yet again. So I want to hit pause and ask a question. This was for me, but I thought it might also be helpful for many of you listening. What are one to three decisions? that could dramatically simplify my life in twenty twenty six.

0:49 How can I simplify? Simplify, simplify. And to explore that, I invited five listener favorites. Maria Popopa, Morgan Housel, Cal Newport. Craig Maud and Debbie Melman to chime in and to describe how they have simplified. Their lives. And you can find previous editions of this series.

1:07 People sharing their simplification strategies. For instance, Derek Sivers, Seth Gooden, Martha Beck. That's 837. And if you like this, we'll keep doing it. I am using a lot of what has been shared and I'll continue to do that. So without further ado, please enjoy. A few steps towards simplification. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

1:33 Now we're just seeing. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endocrine. No My name is Maria Popova, and I am a writer. Here are two things I have done to anneal my life.

1:57 Simple, practical, behavioral changes that have had profound existential benefits. The first is that At some point I realized I was giving my time to people I perfectly like, respect, can spend a passable hour with conversing about things of some interest. But It was always leaving me

2:19 Malnourished. Wishing I had spent that hour writing, or down a rabbit hole about the anatomy of the eye of the scallop. or talking with one of my closest friends about her work on exoplanets. And so I adopted a kind of I guess you could call it the cherish quotient. I decided to stop giving my time to people whose company and conversation I don't absolutely cherish.

2:45 Not just like Or appreciate or admire or feel kinship with, but cherish. Because as Annie Dillard so memorably wrote How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. And so every middling hour is a step toward a middling life. Life is

3:07 Wasted on the lukewarm, anything you give your time and attention to should roil with the magma of yes and And the second thing is very kindred to the first. Some years ago I Emailed a poet I know who is also an ordained Buddhist and got an auto response detailing her overcommitment. And As I was reading it, I got a text from a physicist friend with an elaborate breakdown of his travels and his relationship troubles to explain why it had taken him three days to get back to me.

3:42 And I thought Holy star dust, here are people of extraordinary intelligence, creativity, accomplishment, and work ethic. who think they are accountable to others for how they spend their time. Which is the fulcrum of their life. And I thought

3:59 How sad. How necessary that we train each other in a kind of basic faith That everyone is doing the best with the equation between the resources they have and Which we tend to overestimate. and the demands their life places upon them, which we tend to underestimate, because most of them are invisible to us.

4:20 And so I stopped using autoresponders or apologizing for how long it takes me to return a text. Because The moment you begin apologizing for how you manage your time, you are essentially apologizing for your priorities. Which means apologizing for your life.

4:41 Hey, Tim Ferris listeners, thanks for having me. My name is Morgan Hausel. I'm the author of three books. The psychology of money. Same as ever. And the art of spending money.

4:50 And I want to share with you a couple of things that I've done in the last ten or twenty years. That I think had a big positive impact on my life. That were both just around the philosophy of making everything as simple as I possibly could. And the first is how I invest and manage my own money.

5:05 My Entire net worth. Is a house. Cash. Vanguard index funds.

5:12 And shares of Marquell, where I'm on the board of directors. It It's hard to imagine a more simple Investing. Asset allocation.

5:21 philosophy and I've done it for a few reasons. I think there are smart investors out there. Who have and will continue to outperform the market. And I know some of them.

5:31 And could invest with them. I'll tell you why I don't do it though. I think there is so much evidence. Throughout history. That the fewer decisions you have to make as an investor, the better you're gonna do over the course of your life. And so there may be given years, maybe even given decades.

5:47 When smart people Ride a trend, spot an opportunity. Of course that exists. But the fewer chances and decisions that I have to make of What are the trends gonna be? Who are the investors that I need to go with? When have they lost their touch and get out? The fewer of those decisions I have to make, the better. So much of the decisions that we make.

6:07 And the forecast that we make. In the economy. And with investments. You know, truly objective.

6:14 Views. of trends and where we think the world is going. and more to do with what we want to happen in the future. When you make a prediction about where the US economy's going, where AI is going, whatever it might be. It's less about what you truly think is going to happen given the evidence, and more about what you want to happen.

6:31 Given the biases in the lens of your own history and your own life and your own incentives. That kind of thing. And nobody is immune to that. Everybody has that. The fewer decisions that I have to make and anyone Can make.

6:45 the better we're gonna do as investors. I think that is true for ninety-nine point nine percent of people. The other reason I do it and I think this gets lost. Is There's a lot of evidence that how well you do over your lifetime as an investor.

6:58 has less to do with the returns that you earn in any given year or any given decade and more just how long can you do it for. If your goal is to not outperform your peers this quarter or this year. If your goal is to maximize wealth over the course of your life. Pretty much the variable that matters more than anything is just how long you do it for.

7:17 And I know that if I can be an average Investor. For an above average period of time. I'm gonna outperform the huge, huge majority of investors.

7:27 If I could be a passive investor for fifty years. You will probably after taxes and fees end up in the top I don't know, two or three percent of investors, maybe the top one percent. of investors. Just by doing nothing.

7:38 And maybe that last point. Is the most important. You're getting all this for doing nothing. For just sitting back and passively owning a slice of capitalism. How do you factor in that?

7:49 Ease. And so if like let's let's take an active investor who is working forty, fifty, eighty hours a week. Tracking markets. And maybe they love it and they enjoy it. It's their hobby. But let's say they do that and they outperform me by

8:01 you know, fifty basis points per year, whatever it might be. How do you factor in the fact that I got my return for doing nothing? And somebody else got it for Lots and lots of work and stress and whatever it might be. And so I think when you put all that together, I want to minimize the biases that I and everybody has in the world.

8:18 I think if I can do that, I'll actually end up in the top one percent of investors. Over the course of my life. And I'll do it for Virtually no effort. There's a psychological cost of putting up with the volatility, but

8:30 I can spend the time that I would have spent trying to track the global economy and trends and use that time. In my career. If that's outside of investing, my family, my health. My hobbies, those kind of things.

8:42 The second thing I've done. has to do with my relationship with the news. And I would sum it up like this. I think a really good heuristic for your relationship with information is

8:52 Read more history and fewer forecasts. As simple as it gets. Now if you were to Scroll most people's social media timeline. If they're interested in the news. Whether that is

9:03 Business news, economic news, political news, science news, whatever it might be, the vast majority of it is forward looking predictions. It's maybe here's what happened today, and here's what that means is going to happen tomorrow. It's very predictive. And of course if you're even a a loose amateur student of history You know how difficult the history of predictions Or

9:24 It's just a very difficult thing to do. The world is so much more complex than we want to make it out to be. And so when we're trying to predict what's gonna happen next, it's very, very difficult. A little side note because I just watched it. I just finished it this week. If you watch Or read the book. It's called

9:38 Eleven twenty two sixty three. So book written by Stephen King. unbelievable book about a guy who basically finds a time machine and goes back in time. To prevent J F K from being assassinated. And he does this, he goes back in time, he prevents it, he thinks he saved the world and there's gonna be no Vietnam War and whatever. And then he comes back.

9:57 to the present day. And realizes. That because he screwed with a little bit of history in nineteen sixty three. The present world. completely fell to pieces. And so when he comes back in time, it's like a Mad Max scenario.

10:10 And I think that general idea. that trends are very, very difficult. to extrapolate. And to figure out what's gonna happen in the future, particularly if we're talking about long periods of time. is very difficult. And so I don't spend a lot of time doing it or reading it.

10:24 What I do want to spend a lot of time doing in my life. is we're getting history. And I think if you Immerse yourself in history. Any kind of history, business history, political history, military history, whatever it might be, even if you're looking at just the last hundred years.

10:37 Just in your own country. You become familiar with a lot of the psychological trends that repeat. And you see over and over and over again. And so if you spend time doing that. You understand

10:48 How people are influenced by incentives. How whole cultures fall into traps of greed and fear. And Blindness to the problems that they're causing themselves and the problems that are causing them in the world, you become very familiar with big broad trends.

11:04 And once you become familiar with those and spend most of your time studying that stuff. Your ability to filter the news. The current news. is much stronger. And you can read the news in a much more simplified manner. You can run through the headlines and very quickly tell that headline's not important.

11:19 I'm not gonna care about that. Six months from now or a year from now. It's not important the slightest. This thing about this new technology or whatever this might be, or this example in the news of people falling for the traps of greed and fear. That's pretty interesting. Let me read that and wrap my head around it. Contextualize within the big models that you've learned from history.

11:38 I think it's made my relationship with the news Simpler. And healthier. And I think if you don't have those big trends of human behavior in your head that you learned from history.

11:49 It's very easy to get stuck in these wormholes of reading the news. of every headline seems like it's a disaster. And every headline seems like it's something you need to pay attention to that's gonna change the rest of your life. And there's a great quote that I love. And she says,

12:06 When you haven't engaged with history, everything feels unprecedented. I think that's a great way. To summarize that. That's what I got for you. Thanks so much. for listening and thank you for Tim and the rest of his team.

12:18 For doing this. Hi. I'm Cal Newport. I'm a computer science professor and a technology theorist. I write and podcast about seeking depth.

12:29 In an increasingly distracted world. What I want to talk about here. It's simplifying. No, I wanna establish something right off the bat. The entire reason why I'm a professor and a writer for my job and not say like a technology executive. Or a startup founder who's made a bunch of money is that my body

12:48 Cannot handle busyness. When I have too many things to do and my calendar is filled with appointment after appointment. This does not energize me. This does not excite me.

13:00 I get anxious. I get stressed out. What I need in my life is autonomy and space to work on my own terms to produce cool things over a long amount of time. Not to do a lot of stuff. In the short term. This has caused me to have to continually readjust what's going on in my life to make sure That this busyness does not get out of control. I have to continually simplify

13:22 to keep my lifestyle something that I can actually tolerate. So I want to give you two examples about this from my actual life. The first has to do with the opportunities that I get offered because as a writer and a podcaster, I'm relatively successful at what I do. As the years have gone on. When I've gotten better. So have the opportunities and offers that come my way. I'm talking about like traveling to really cool places.

13:48 Chances to hang out with famous or really interesting people, stupid amounts of money being thrown my way. I mean, I'm talking about like A two day trip. That they're offering you healthily more. than you know, my annual professor salary. What I've learned over the years

14:05 Is that I basically have to make no My default answer. But here's the problem. If you try to put in a triage rule. Here's how I evaluate if something is good enough for me to actually spend time doing it. I found that whatever rule I came up with, too many things actually satisfied that rule. There were too many

14:25 good enough offers coming my way that I would end up coming busy anyways. And I would go into a cycle where I'd be completely overloaded. I get anxious and resentful. And then in reaction I'd angrily say no to everything else and I would tell people they don't care, but I would tell them I am so busy, I can't possibly do this. Like they care. Like they need to know why. You can't do something. And then I would cycle down to doing nothing. Then I would cycle up to being too busy, getting anxious and upset. And this was not healthy. So I realized no just has to be

14:53 More or less my default answer. To keep my life at the level of simplicity. That I personally need. To thrive. So now I basically when it comes to these type of offers

15:06 I'm really only agreeing if it's something I can bring my family to and it's basically funding a vacation that we want to do otherwise, or if it's something that's cool and super convenient. Now here's the thing. In addition to like, you know, missing out on money and contacts and book sales or whatever, I'm also clearly missing out on cool experiences by doing this. Like I'll give you an example. For over a year. Master class was asking me, like, hey, will you do a master class?

15:31 We think your topic is Well matched to our audience. And my default answer was no. Like that sounds like a hassle. And it would be cool, but I don't want hassle, so no, no, no, no. But eventually we found a way to make it work. I mean they were Really accommodating, like, look, we can just do this in DC. It's not gonna be a big deal. I talked to some other people who had done master classes. I was like, you know what? Maybe I'll do this. This is convenient enough. And I did. And you know what? It was really cool.

15:52 They rented a house. They had a crew of twenty people. It was like a movie set. We're the only uh talent and I'm putting ferocious air quotes around this was me.

16:02 So you gotta meet interesting people. The director had worked on a bunch of television shows I know. The makeup artists had just been working on Ryan Coogler Sinners. The class which actually just came out is like really good. It's like, you know, I probably should have just done this originally. And who knows how many other things like this that are pretty cool that I'm missing out on. But here's the thing. I realize over time. That's okay. The goal with me simplifying the things I say yes to

16:26 is not to try to avoid bad things, not like I need to get rid of these bad things out of my life so I can focus more on the things I really like. It's instead trying to hit an ideal lifestyle. And for me, my ideal lifestyle isn't too busy. All right, let me give you another example. This has to do with my academic life. This was a complicated one for me. I'm a computer scientist by training. I got my doctorate at MIT. I worked under Nancy Lynch and Ethereum of Distributed Systems Group. I specialize in

16:52 Distributed algorithm theory with a focus on shares. And really my my subspecialty, because you all care about this is uh lower bounds for randomized algorithms. And that's what I do. And I was pretty good at that. And you know, I became a professor at Georgetown to work on doing distributed algorithm Theory. supervising grad students, getting grants, writing papers, trying to win awards, et cetera. So

17:12 This is what I did. I also was always a writer. I wrote my first book while I was an undergraduate. And so I sort of had writing going on, but it was on the side and these weren't at the time major books. And it was just something I started as an undergraduate and as a grad student to make some extra money. And I kept going. These two worlds Collided.

17:30 In two thousand and sixteen. This is right around the time I was about to go for ten years a professor. And I published my book Deep Work, which was actually my fifth book. Because I started early. I published this book Deep Work.

17:44 And it did really well. I mean it wasn't meant to be some like major launch or whatever. It wasn't meant to be the big book of the year, but it's something about it hit a cord. And that book started to do really well. Like Two million copies, forty five languages type of well.

18:00 That began to change things for me, especially as I kept writing books. And I started podcasting. That part of my life shifted from being almost like a hobby. To something that I was really well known for.

18:15 And now I I had two major life going on at the same time. Wrangling my career as a writer. While also wrangling my career as a Professor and a theoretician. And it was a lot to try to do both of these things.

18:29 There's a lot of logistics and overhead involved with both of those worlds. There's a lot of work involved with both of those worlds. A lot of thinking goes into proving theorems and a lot of thinking goes into trying to write a book. You have to do these things at the same time. It also created like really So schizophrenic experiences where You would go from a small computer science conference

18:49 you know, where you're essentially taking the super shuttle over to like present the paper and there's like twenty people there. And then you would fly to Malibu and a driver's taking you to your, you know, oceanside suite where you've been, you know, a handler brings you to stage to give this one hour talk to spain, you know. It really became this weird mixed world. And it was too complicated. But I didn't know what to do. I love being a professor, right? I I've been in academia my entire life and I love writing. I just love thinking. Like what was I gonna do here? And the key was

19:14 Simplify what's going on. with unification. So the discovery I had is like well wait a second, this book I wrote Deep Work Which is that's tenth year anniversary. That book was about technology disrupting our ability to work well and what you should do about it. My next book was called Digital Minimalism. That was about technology. My next book after that was called A World Without Email. That book was about technology.

19:37 A lot of what I was doing on my podcast was technology. I started writing for the New Yorker. A lot of what I was covering for the New Yorker was Technology. And then around this time, as if the point wasn't being made clear enough to me, the university where I work started a a focus on digital ethics and they created the Center for Digital Ethics and asked me to be involved. And I realized, wait a second. These aren't two different worlds. I'm a computer scientist.

19:58 And I'm writing about the impact of the type of technologies that computer scientists create and what we should do about it. Oh, this is the same world. I could be an academic That focuses On technology and its impacts. The ethics of technology.

20:11 And this is a more recent change I've made and is brand new, and I'm still trying to adjust to it, but at least for now I have put a pause on doing distributed algorithm theory and supervising doctoral students working on the distributed algorithm theory and going to distributed algorithm conferences and getting grants to fund students to work on distributed algorithm theory. I put a pause on that. They say all of my effort is aimed at the same thing. Thinking and writing about technology and its impacts. On humans flourishing and depth and what we can do about it.

20:34 And that simplified everything. That's a completely reasonable thing. I'm now a full professor, so I'm at a stage of my career where I I have flexibility and it I should be exploring other intellectual avenues. Am I writing, my podcasting, my article writing? All of this is now unified. Towards a common.

20:49 Topic. I simplified what was going on in my career. Now again, this involves cutting off options. It involves cutting off opportunities. It also means, you know, I could be doing one thing maybe even better. To me the right way to think about simplifying His lifestyle design. I'm gonna use Tim's word here, lifestyle design. You know what conditions of your day to day existence

21:10 Yeah. best for you, the conditions in which you, your you as an individual are going to thrive. And what you're the whole game is designing a lifestyle that matches that. And for me, that required a high level of simplicity. I needed autonomy and I needed a lack of busyness. And so I don't think about any of this in terms of what's being left on the table. I think about it in terms of like how much I get to enjoy my day to day life when I'm successful with these efforts. So I still struggle with this. I constantly have to cycle and re simplify.

21:37 Sometimes they go too far. But it's something I think about a lot. It's probably something you should think about a lot. As well. Just a quick thanks to our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show.

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24:05 Hi. I'm Craig Maud, writer, photographer, and long haul walker who has lived most of his adult life. In Japan, actually pretty much all of it. My most recent book is called Things Become Other Things. It was published by Random House last year.

24:23 I did a book before that called Kisa by Kisa. These are both books. About Huge walks across Japan. I've walked from Tokyo to Kyoto three times, I've walked the Ki Peninsula a bunch, the Hagiokan, the Rokuri, Goi Kaido, all sorts of

24:36 Different routes all over Japan. And actually all over the world at large. But in Japan I'm mostly looking at how the country is changing and uh you know, just trying to understand things. So three decisions I've made. To simplify my life.

24:49 Number one. Cutting out alcohol. Easily the lowest energy in, biggest impact out. Simplification. Of my life.

24:58 has been to drop alcohol by the side of the road like a sack of dead cats. Stinky dead cats, I struggled mightily with alcohol abuse in my twenties and looking back Nothing made things more complicated than this very stupid very destructive relationship between me And drinking.

25:15 Everything I perceived as complex in my life. Try to figure out who I was. Believing in That person that that person could even exist. Wanting to find a strong, meaningful partnership.

25:26 Was made. exponentially more complex by the presence of alcohol. If I could just go back And whisper in my nineteen year old ears. Hey, dude, just don't drink. And if I could have followed that.

25:39 A lot of things would have been simpler. Almost nothing. In my twenties was made better by alcohol. And now the big question is, of course, if you're struggling with alcohol is how do you cut The cord.

25:50 That's the big Conundrum with a habit. An addiction like that. And for me it was finding deep meaning in my work. It was also

25:59 Sort of about hitting rock bottom. That was definitely a catalyst. Waking up one night and Just being like Really feeling like I was at the bottom of a terrible well. But

26:09 Just being at the bottom of that well. I don't think is enough. To motivate you. To really kick the habit. You need Some kind of almost

26:18 like spiritual like quote unquote higher power Experience. I think to really get over. An abusive relationship. I mean alcohol or or otherwise.

26:28 For me that was My work. I was really lucky in the sense that I had this internal compass that I've felt for my entire life that was Drawing me towards a certain kind of work.

26:39 The writing. The walking I started doing. And I could see Once I acknowledge

26:47 that kind of higher power in the work. Every drink I took I saw and I felt in my bones. As taking away from that work. And that alone was enough for me to be able to say no easily, consistently. And ultimately over the long haul.

27:01 That was About Eighteen years ago. That I really Decided to okay.

27:07 Let's cut this out. But I think if you don't have that purpose, it's almost impossible. To cut the habit. The second big decision I made or Tiny decision or whatever.

27:17 To simplify my life. Is Therapy at the risk of selling like a cliche, starting therapy in earnest almost nine years ago now. It's funny, it was you know, about nine years after I Quit drinking.

27:29 Was one of the simplest decisions I've made that's probably had One of the biggest Impacts. On my life. And in simplifying my life.

27:37 Through Clarification. I believe that's very difficult to achieve simplicity in life. And to feel purpose strongly. And clearly with a muddled mind.

27:46 Kinda makes sense. And you know, the man who doesn't know who they are. Can't be Expected To

27:53 Perform at the best. Or to simplify their life. Or to make the right decisions if purpose itself feels mystical and forever off on some Impossibly elusive horizon. I find that therapy when it's done really well, it cuts to the bone in a really clarifying, interesting way.

28:09 It just calls out all the bullshit adled voices that you carry around in your head. You've probably been carrying around your whole life. And it just kinda calls bullshit on us. Hey, what we okay, let's really Figure out what this voice is saying. Most of the time you realize that voice is

28:22 Responding to something that Either hasn't been a part of your life ever, or hasn't been a part of your life in say. Thirty years. In demystifying yourself?

28:31 And then There by clarifying who it is you really are. And why you are the way you are. You are paradoxically I find more freer, less limited.

28:42 Than ever. To use a dub metaphor. We're all swimming. Some of us are swimming in clearer waters than others. Fundamentally you're not gonna change

28:50 The creature that you are in the water? But I do find that therapy Cleans the waters. Quite a bit.

28:56 And in those muddy waters you just find yourself swimming in circles like an idiot. And I certainly Found that to be the catalyst For reaching out nine years ago and wanting to Begin therapy in earnest.

29:07 Was Even though I had achieved a certain amount of clarity and I felt a certain kind of purpose I was still doing some Dumb things in my life. That

29:15 Felt Just Irreconcilable Based on the purpose that I also felt. And so

29:21 these sort of circles that I found myself moving in for certain aspects of my life. In order to Demystify to clarify them, I thought okay. Third party help. It's probably required.

29:31 I don't think we can Carry this weight on our own. And I did. And actually immediately I found Within the first

29:38 couple of weeks of therapy, this incredible Sense of clarity and also this vision of a better version of myself, an even better version of myself that I felt like I could become And every week in therapy. I find myself stepping up and becoming that person.

29:53 And over time It's not just been an hour Yeah. becoming that person leaks out onto the sides of it and I find that I'm

30:03 more able to readily inhabit that version of myself that I want to be. So Therapy just cleans the waters.

30:11 Clarifies things. Simplifies. All of that. The act of living. And it allows you to move forward in ways. That I think would be impossible on your own.

30:19 And those Paths that you can move forward on are much simpler than the ones I found I was moving on without therapy. And then the third. Decision.

30:28 I've made to simplify my life has been to commit to craft. Almost nothing in my life has paid. Bigger dividends. Then Stopping my waffling around, trying to figure out

30:39 If I was an artist or a musician or a technologist or a writer or programmer or publisher or photographer No. I'm a writer. The end. And the more I've doubled down on that choice

30:51 That commitment. To the craft of writing. The simpler my life has become And the more vast my connections to Beautiful.

31:00 Inspiring People. Everyone that I have in my life that I love and respect. Can be traced back almost one to one. To

31:08 The commitment to the craft of writing. And the act of writing itself. And publishing. Getting things out there in the world. The more I write

31:17 And the more people I reach I find the bigger the impact of not only my present writing, but also stuff I've written in the past. It's sort of Pays compounding dividends.

31:27 And the more all of that is happening, the more inspiring people enter my orbit. And when I say craft. Committing to that craft of writing is not just dashing things off here and there. It is A full Sort of

31:40 Almost Maniacal. Pathological commitment. Or you'll spend weeks and months In years.

31:47 Working on Certain texts. And it involves a lot of reading. Editing. Conversations.

31:55 Engagement with the world of literature. As a whole. That's what it means. In my mind. To commit to craft.

32:01 Because you're not just committing to hiding in a cave. Typing. You're engaging In The case of writing in in the case of writing that I like to do.

32:11 Case of writing that moves me. That I feel most drawn to. Literary. Nonfiction literary fiction universe of writing. In my mind, look, I'm still a photographer.

32:20 And I love technology. And following how it's changing The world and thinking about its impact on society. But these interests and identities.

32:30 that I've carried all throughout my life to s to a certain degree or another are all mediated now through writing. And instead of trying to be a jack of fifty trades. Especially as I was in my teens and twenties. Which I kinda had to be for s to a certain degree. I chose

32:43 One trade to commit to. Which is the craft of writing. That's it. I mean, of course, friends and family are omnipresent, big part of things. But the foundations that allow me to be present for them. And to be the best version of myself.

32:57 For them and for Everyone else out there. Lies in the three decisions that I've outlined here. They've made things simpler and

33:05 God damn, they've made things better. The four month decision. by Debbie Millman. In twenty sixteen, I turned down a job offer to become the CEO. Of the company where I had been working for over twenty years.

33:23 At the time, I was president of the firm. My partners and I had sold the company to Omnicom in two thousand and eight. I had a five year earnout, which meant I was obligated to stay there through twenty twelve. After that.

33:37 I was free to leave. And that is exactly what I was planning to do. For years I'd been fantasizing about a different life. A life with more writing and creativity. More teaching.

33:50 More experiments. A life that felt simpler and less operational. Less quarterly. But when the earnout ended. I didn't leave.

34:01 I told myself at the time there were many reasons. Money, security, status, fear, power, identity. I acknowledged it was hard for me to walk away from something I had helped build. It was scary to leave a place where I could see the evidence of the biggest successes of my life. All around me.

34:21 And it was difficult to disentangle what I was running day to day From what I wanted to run towards. So I stayed. Three years went by. But by twenty fifteen.

34:33 I finally mustered up the courage to make my move. It wasn't particularly dramatic. It really was just time. And then I was offered an even bigger job.

34:48 My existing CEO. A man I worked with for the entirety of my twenty years at the firm. Was looking to transition The chairman. And then he offered me his job.

34:59 CEO The chief executive officer. On paper it was extraordinary. I would be one of a small number of female CEOs within Omnicom. I would be one of the few openly LGBTQ leaders helming a branding consultancy.

35:17 I would have full authority to shape the future of the agency I loved. It felt like an honor. It felt historic. And powerful. But it also felt

35:28 Heavy. I told myself I should want it. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I told myself that declining it might mean I lack the ambition. Or courage. Or vision.

35:40 As I considered what to do, I wondered if I turned it down I would regret it forever. If disappoint people. If I would disappoint myself. And then I couldn't decide.

35:53 For four months I vacillated. I made spreadshead and pro con lists, I sought advice, I talked to friends, I consulted with my mentors, and every time I tried to land on a yes, I Something in me resisted. And I continued to vacillate. One afternoon, after yet another conversation about my indecision, my very patient CEO said something to me that changed everything.

36:19 He said. Debbie? Anything that takes you four months to decide. Might mean You really don't want to do it.

36:30 And suddenly. It was as if someone had opened a window in a sealed room. I had been framing my decision as Bravery versus fear. As ambition versus retreat.

36:44 А на сус. Versus surrender. What if the four months weren't indecision? But rather clarity trying to surface. His sentence gave me the permission to admit what I didn't want.

36:57 And permission to prioritize alignment. Over advancement. And so I turn the CEO job down. I remember the moment distinctly.

37:09 But it wasn't cinematic. There was no swelling music, there was no dramatic speech. But it was immediate. Unmistakable relief. And yes, it was also bittersweet as I went through the realization that when you close one door

37:25 You're closing a version of yourself. I have never Once. Regretted it. Not once in the ten years since I made the decision that

37:35 To step into the life I now lead. Turning down that job simplified my life in ways I couldn't have predicted. Instead of scaling an organization. I began expanding my ideas. I continued my writing and my podcast.

37:50 Caught more intentionally. I began taking my illustration work more seriously. And I invested in doing projects that felt like extensions of my values. Rather than my title. Or my portfolio.

38:02 Something else happened too. My ambition changed shape. For much of my career ambition looked like a scent. More responsibility, more authority, more achievement, more recognition. Becoming CEO would have been impressive to who I was.

38:17 But it would not have been aligned with who I want it to be. There's a particular kind of simplicity. There comes Not from doing less. But from doing what feels really true.

38:29 Simplicity isn't only about minimalism. I think it's also about coherence. I often think about how seductive power can be, especially for women. Especially for queer people. Especially for anyone who was had to fight for legitimacy.

38:46 When an institution offers you the top seat at the table. It's heady. Feels like validation. But validation is not the same thing as fulfillment. And power is not the same thing as purpose.

38:58 Simplifying my life. didn't mean shrinking it. What I wanted. Though I didn't fully have the language for it at the time. Was not more control.

39:09 I wanted more freedom. That freedom has allowed me to build a very different kind of life. This meant removing the parts that no longer fit. So that the parts that did Could expand.

39:20 And to me. That has been the greatest simplification of all. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out. every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kinda like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading,

40:00 albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. Not to be a salty old dog, but in the early 2000s. Back in the day when I was running my own e-commerce business, the tools were

40:43 Atrocious. They try it hard, but man was it bad. You had to cobble all sorts of stuff together. I could only dream of a platform like Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. And now 10% of all e-commerce in the US is on Shopify. Now back to the early 2000s, then nobody even thought of AI. Who could have predicted even in the last 24 months the magic that is now possible with AI, Shopify has been ahead of the curve and they are packed with helpful AI tools.

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41:45 In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. As many of you know, for the last few years, I've been sleeping on a midnight luxe mattress from today's sponsor, Helix Sleep. I also have one in the guest bedroom downstairs and feedback from friends has always been fantastic. It's something they comment on without any prompting from me whatsoever. I also recently had a chance to test the Helix Sunset Elite. The Sunset Elite delivers exceptional comfort while putting the right sport in the right spots. It is made with five tailored foam layers. including a base layer with full perimeter zoned lumbar support right where I need it and middle lay with premium foam and microcoils to create a soft contouring feel. Helix offers a 100 night sleep trial, fast free shipping, and a 15 year warranty. So check it all out. And now you can get 27% off anything on their website, so site wide. So just go to helixsleep.com slash Tim. One more time, HelixSleep.com slash Tim.

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