today we’re more connected than ever
social media we have the ability to
communicate what we’re doing their
friends and our families regardless of
timing or geography with smartphones we
have technology in the palm of our hands
24/7 we’re exposed to more fake news
over the course of an hour on Twitter
than our grandparents were exposed to
real news during entire periods of their
lives just as a product of living in the
21st century we have more resources than
any generation program yet with all of
these enhancements and advancements to
our modern lives were still more unhappy
than ever according to the National
Institute of Health one out of six
Americans suffers from a major suffers
from an anxiety disorder of some kind
and in 2015 16 million Americans
suffered at least one major depressive
episode in a world where we’re more
connected than ever we’ve never felt
more alone
so who here by show of hands has ever
fallen into the trap of posting
something on social media than being
glued to their phone or their laptop
constantly refreshing their browser
waiting for the notifications in the
comments and the mentions to come in
I’ve been there
status anxiety is one of the biggest
drivers for this unhappiness with
Facebook Twitter Linkedin we have an
ever-growing pool of peers to size
ourselves up against to compare
ourselves to make matters worse we
democratize our happiness to the number
of likes or shares that we get on a
photo or status update and as a result
of this status anxiety we get pushed to
pursue high paying jobs to go to the
nation’s top universities to have the
status the wealth and if we’re lucky
we’ll be able to reach that goal and
we’ll drive up to work in our shiny BMW
and we’ll sit in our corner office and
look at
ivy-league diplomas on the wall but as
the research shows we’re still unhappy
why to answer that question I want to
share my story and it begins like
perhaps a lot of you in a rural
community in Illinois where I grew up my
parents my friend’s parents they all
worked blue-collar lunch-pail type of
jobs in my neighborhood there were no
such thing as investment bankers or
management consultants there were
mechanics and construction workers and
so when I came to University and I
started landing I was fortunate enough
to land some of the top internships at
management consulting firms and
corporate America as I looked around the
room started to panic because as I
compared myself to these others in the
room my peers and my co-workers
I just couldn’t relate to them they’d
all come from affluent backgrounds and
that seemed as if they had been groomed
for these positions since the day they
were born and here I was this country
kid who just somehow slipped up through
the cracks and because of that I started
to develop what’s commonly referred to
as the imposter syndrome
I felt that I didn’t belong in that at
any given moment everyone was judging me
just waiting for me to slip up and make
a mistake so that HR could beat down the
door pulled me out of the room because
they finally figured it out they had
proved that I didn’t belong to be there
and because of this this insecurity I
started to control the one thing that I
thought I could and for me that was my
appearance and I had thought to myself
you know the best way to throw these
people off my scent it’s to be the most
well dressed in the room at every given
moment some of the most well-respected
people in the business world are also
the most well dressed and I figured that
couldn’t be a coincidence and so what
started out as a seemingly innocent
hobby of collecting clothes and being
interested in fashion slowly evolved
into an obsession before I knew it I had
a closet overflowing with
brother suits and j.crew button-ups and
Italian leather shoes and on top of that
I had packages coming to my apartment
every day to fill my already overflowing
closet and for a while it works it
started to feel a little bit more
confident in myself
some people even started complimenting
me on the way I looked
some people even asked me for advice but
as I went on I realized I started to
develop an unhealthy relationship with
clothing I was using it as a way to hide
my insecurities instead of actually
address the larger issue at hand and so
this went on for a number of years as I
constantly accumulated more and more
until one summer I was given an
internship across the country and for
this internship there was no way I could
prank my entire wardrobe in all my
belongings across the country for a
short period of time I was forced to
evaluate my belongings and fit what I
could into just a couple small suitcases
and through this exercise for the first
time in a long time perhaps even ever I
had to evaluate everything I owned and
look at it critically namely clothing
and the first thing that I noticed was
that I had all of these possessions all
these outfits but I had warned them
maybe once twice and thrown them to the
side never to be worn again just stuffed
in in my drawers and never to be open
and see the light of day and through
this I started to understand that and
become aware of the fact that I had this
toxic relationship with clothing and
over time I started to look at things
from a different lens started to
understand that I had all of these
different outfits I had more than enough
yet I constantly felt the need to add
more to get the latest fashions all well
never never getting rid of anything else
right and so this exercise of packing up
and moving across the country created a
paradigm shift in me as soon as I
started to understand
my unhealthy relationship with clothing
and how I was using it as a way to mask
my insecurities I started to flip the
script instead of looking for ways to
add more and accumulate more and more
materials I started to look for ways to
eliminate and over the course of those
30 days are sorry of those three months
of working and at an internship I went
from having this massive wardrobe to
reducing and donating 90% of my clothing
to charity and for someone who had
enough outfits to wear a distinct
different one every day for weeks if not
months at a time this was especially
challenging right maybe you can relate
to the feeling of when you go to donate
something at Goodwill or Salvation Army
there’s a little bit of resistance each
time you do it but each time I pushed
through that resistance I started to
gain a little bit more freedom so I
developed a little bit more confidence
and instead of being ashamed of my past
and my upbringing being raised in a
small community I started embracing it
started viewing it as a part of my
identity sorry to be prideful of it
slowly but surely I started become more
comfortable in my own skin and all of
this reduction and this minimalism that
I practiced started to give me more
confidence and more energy and so I took
that energy and I challenged myself even
further over the course of my last 30
days and my internship I decided to do
something that would have freaked me out
even a couple of months before and for
the last 30 days I decided to wear the
same outfit every day for 30 days and
I’m just thinking right not the great
idea DJ but at first I was with you I
freaked out I was extremely skeptical I
thought that seemingly everyone had to
notice that I was wearing the same thing
that I was going to get judged if not
solely on the aesthetic of the it you
know pretty distinct aroma that comes
with wearing the same pair of jeans for
30 days straight but every day I got up
and I put on the same shirt I put on the
same pair of jeans in the same shoes I
went to work
what’s handled my friends and something
really interesting happened over that
course of that month of minimalism
started to realize that people don’t
care about your appearance as much as
you think they do because over those 30
days
not a single person noticed my
experiment
not a single person notice that I was
wearing the same stupid great v-neck and
same pair of shoes every day and it
finally gave me the validation that I
need it people don’t care as much as you
think they do because honestly quite
frankly people are too consumed with
their own insecurities and their own
appearance and their own problems to
waste very valuable time and energy
judging you and the way you look in your
behaviors and so after this month of
minimalism I was fortunate enough to go
on a three-month backpacking trip and
instead of bringing a 60 or 70 liter bag
and filling it to the brim with
accessories and clothing I opted for the
faultless smallest bag I could find and
I brought with me just three outfits to
last me three months in 14 different
countries and the only way that I can
describe to you the feeling I had that
freedom that came with that is to think
back to when you were a kid or maybe an
elementary school when it’s that first
day of summer break your parents drop
you off or the bus drops you off at home
and you sit there and think I’m free I
have three months to do whatever I want
to do and that freedom but feeling like
a kid again it was the first time I felt
that since I was a child and it was
intoxicating
something I was hooked on I never wanted
to let that go and so when I finished my
trip and I moved across the country to
start my full-time job I would for that
feeling and when I had an amazing
apartment in a great part of the city
with an awesome roommate everything
seemed great on paper but still
something just didn’t seem right I
desired that freedom I had of living
that minimalistic lifestyle and so I did
the thing that pretty much any twenty
three-year-old would do in that
situation and I so bleached out my
apartment I bought a van and I started
living out of it right what you guys
would do
and for the last 12 months this 1997
Dodge Ram wagon has been my home
it’s the ultimate picture of freedom I
could go wherever I wanted on the
weekends I could save more money than
ever because I didn’t have to pay
expensive San Francisco rents I could
save more time than ever because I
basically had Silicon Valley as a
shortest commute because I just lived in
the parking lot but but more importantly
than the freedom associated with it
living in a van created an even bigger
shift inside of you when you live in a
van
you can’t constantly purchase things off
of Amazon or have a massive wardrobe
because you simply just don’t have the
space for it and so because of that I
had to start critically evaluating every
single material possession that was in
my life and as I went through that
process I started to understand that it
wasn’t the things in life that brought
me long-term joy sure purchasing
something had a nice dopamine rush
associated with it and the short term
felt great but at the end of the day it
was the experiences and the people that
I shared those experiences with that
brought me long-term joy and so over
those 12 months I shifted my goals from
that of status and material accumulation
mindset to that of a pursuit of novel
experiences and for some of the honestly
one of the best years of my life because
of that but I would be lying if I told
you that living in a van was also
enshrined in rainbows first off as a 23
year old single male I will tell you
this living in a van I don’t see where
my head’s going here
living in a van doesn’t exactly up your
tinder game all right I’ll say that but
but in all seriousness in the winter it
gets cold and there’s nothing more
humbling than waking up shivering at
3:00 in the morning from an unexpected
cold front and when everything you own
is inside of a car a lot can go wrong
when you break down on the side of the
road and there’s no mechanics open to
help you fix it but even with that being
said I wouldn’t trade my van life
experience for anything because in
addition to teaching me that material
possessions are less valuable than
experiences in relationships it also
taught me that the worst case scenario
isn’t as bad as you think it is well
when you live in a van hands you really
don’t have a lot right and when you
don’t have a lot you start to realize
that you don’t have a lot to lose
and we don’t have anything to lose you
can take risks you can pursue your
passions you can chase after your dreams
in addition to that by getting back to
the basics to the fundamentals of
everything I owned and living a
minimalistic lifestyle I was able to
reconnect with my passions and my
childhood dreams and while my previous
job was well-paying and somewhat
prestigious of a job title it was on
fulfilling and every day I was left
miserable so minimalism gave me
confidence in the courage to quit my job
and to go pursue my passion even if it
is a more unconventional career path and
even if I’m not going to make really any
money but I know what you’re thinking
right now DJ you’re crazy there’s no way
I’m selling my house or leasing my
apartment to go live in a van it’s okay
I won’t judge you
but in all seriousness you don’t have to
live on the extremes to reap the
benefits of minimalism for me I didn’t
go from having this massive wardrobe to
living in a van overnight it’s a series
of baby steps over time and in addition
to that minimalism doesn’t have to take
the form of minimizing your possessions
either certainly you can follow my lead
and you can decrease your wardrobe or
your possessions or
declutter your life but you could also
do something as simple as taking your
physical photos and scanning them and
creating a digital photo album you could
minimize the hobbies that you used to
enjoy but now take more joy out of your
life than they give back and you can
also distance yourself from
relationships that no longer make you
happy
minimalism can take a plethora of
different forms and there’s really no
magnitude to the amount there’s no
minimum magnitude of the way you can
apply it to your life so undoubtedly
there’s an issue in the world today we
have more resources than any generation
prior yet we’re more unhappy than ever I
think that our society needs to shift
from that of a status and material
accumulations arms race to that of a
constant audit the people things and
behaviors that fill our lives and make a
ruthless effort to minimize those that
take more value than they give back in
return for me minimalism was an
excellent tool to catalyze this change
inside of myself and I think society can
also benefit from it at large it’s time
for us to stop filling our lives and
stop filling them meet the voids in our
lives
with meaningless possessions start
getting to the root of what really makes
us happy thank you
[Applause]
you
[Music]
social media we have the ability to
communicate what we’re doing their
friends and our families regardless of
timing or geography with smartphones we
have technology in the palm of our hands
24/7 we’re exposed to more fake news
over the course of an hour on Twitter
than our grandparents were exposed to
real news during entire periods of their
lives just as a product of living in the
21st century we have more resources than
any generation program yet with all of
these enhancements and advancements to
our modern lives were still more unhappy
than ever according to the National
Institute of Health one out of six
Americans suffers from a major suffers
from an anxiety disorder of some kind
and in 2015 16 million Americans
suffered at least one major depressive
episode in a world where we’re more
connected than ever we’ve never felt
more alone
so who here by show of hands has ever
fallen into the trap of posting
something on social media than being
glued to their phone or their laptop
constantly refreshing their browser
waiting for the notifications in the
comments and the mentions to come in
I’ve been there
status anxiety is one of the biggest
drivers for this unhappiness with
Facebook Twitter Linkedin we have an
ever-growing pool of peers to size
ourselves up against to compare
ourselves to make matters worse we
democratize our happiness to the number
of likes or shares that we get on a
photo or status update and as a result
of this status anxiety we get pushed to
pursue high paying jobs to go to the
nation’s top universities to have the
status the wealth and if we’re lucky
we’ll be able to reach that goal and
we’ll drive up to work in our shiny BMW
and we’ll sit in our corner office and
look at
ivy-league diplomas on the wall but as
the research shows we’re still unhappy
why to answer that question I want to
share my story and it begins like
perhaps a lot of you in a rural
community in Illinois where I grew up my
parents my friend’s parents they all
worked blue-collar lunch-pail type of
jobs in my neighborhood there were no
such thing as investment bankers or
management consultants there were
mechanics and construction workers and
so when I came to University and I
started landing I was fortunate enough
to land some of the top internships at
management consulting firms and
corporate America as I looked around the
room started to panic because as I
compared myself to these others in the
room my peers and my co-workers
I just couldn’t relate to them they’d
all come from affluent backgrounds and
that seemed as if they had been groomed
for these positions since the day they
were born and here I was this country
kid who just somehow slipped up through
the cracks and because of that I started
to develop what’s commonly referred to
as the imposter syndrome
I felt that I didn’t belong in that at
any given moment everyone was judging me
just waiting for me to slip up and make
a mistake so that HR could beat down the
door pulled me out of the room because
they finally figured it out they had
proved that I didn’t belong to be there
and because of this this insecurity I
started to control the one thing that I
thought I could and for me that was my
appearance and I had thought to myself
you know the best way to throw these
people off my scent it’s to be the most
well dressed in the room at every given
moment some of the most well-respected
people in the business world are also
the most well dressed and I figured that
couldn’t be a coincidence and so what
started out as a seemingly innocent
hobby of collecting clothes and being
interested in fashion slowly evolved
into an obsession before I knew it I had
a closet overflowing with
brother suits and j.crew button-ups and
Italian leather shoes and on top of that
I had packages coming to my apartment
every day to fill my already overflowing
closet and for a while it works it
started to feel a little bit more
confident in myself
some people even started complimenting
me on the way I looked
some people even asked me for advice but
as I went on I realized I started to
develop an unhealthy relationship with
clothing I was using it as a way to hide
my insecurities instead of actually
address the larger issue at hand and so
this went on for a number of years as I
constantly accumulated more and more
until one summer I was given an
internship across the country and for
this internship there was no way I could
prank my entire wardrobe in all my
belongings across the country for a
short period of time I was forced to
evaluate my belongings and fit what I
could into just a couple small suitcases
and through this exercise for the first
time in a long time perhaps even ever I
had to evaluate everything I owned and
look at it critically namely clothing
and the first thing that I noticed was
that I had all of these possessions all
these outfits but I had warned them
maybe once twice and thrown them to the
side never to be worn again just stuffed
in in my drawers and never to be open
and see the light of day and through
this I started to understand that and
become aware of the fact that I had this
toxic relationship with clothing and
over time I started to look at things
from a different lens started to
understand that I had all of these
different outfits I had more than enough
yet I constantly felt the need to add
more to get the latest fashions all well
never never getting rid of anything else
right and so this exercise of packing up
and moving across the country created a
paradigm shift in me as soon as I
started to understand
my unhealthy relationship with clothing
and how I was using it as a way to mask
my insecurities I started to flip the
script instead of looking for ways to
add more and accumulate more and more
materials I started to look for ways to
eliminate and over the course of those
30 days are sorry of those three months
of working and at an internship I went
from having this massive wardrobe to
reducing and donating 90% of my clothing
to charity and for someone who had
enough outfits to wear a distinct
different one every day for weeks if not
months at a time this was especially
challenging right maybe you can relate
to the feeling of when you go to donate
something at Goodwill or Salvation Army
there’s a little bit of resistance each
time you do it but each time I pushed
through that resistance I started to
gain a little bit more freedom so I
developed a little bit more confidence
and instead of being ashamed of my past
and my upbringing being raised in a
small community I started embracing it
started viewing it as a part of my
identity sorry to be prideful of it
slowly but surely I started become more
comfortable in my own skin and all of
this reduction and this minimalism that
I practiced started to give me more
confidence and more energy and so I took
that energy and I challenged myself even
further over the course of my last 30
days and my internship I decided to do
something that would have freaked me out
even a couple of months before and for
the last 30 days I decided to wear the
same outfit every day for 30 days and
I’m just thinking right not the great
idea DJ but at first I was with you I
freaked out I was extremely skeptical I
thought that seemingly everyone had to
notice that I was wearing the same thing
that I was going to get judged if not
solely on the aesthetic of the it you
know pretty distinct aroma that comes
with wearing the same pair of jeans for
30 days straight but every day I got up
and I put on the same shirt I put on the
same pair of jeans in the same shoes I
went to work
what’s handled my friends and something
really interesting happened over that
course of that month of minimalism
started to realize that people don’t
care about your appearance as much as
you think they do because over those 30
days
not a single person noticed my
experiment
not a single person notice that I was
wearing the same stupid great v-neck and
same pair of shoes every day and it
finally gave me the validation that I
need it people don’t care as much as you
think they do because honestly quite
frankly people are too consumed with
their own insecurities and their own
appearance and their own problems to
waste very valuable time and energy
judging you and the way you look in your
behaviors and so after this month of
minimalism I was fortunate enough to go
on a three-month backpacking trip and
instead of bringing a 60 or 70 liter bag
and filling it to the brim with
accessories and clothing I opted for the
faultless smallest bag I could find and
I brought with me just three outfits to
last me three months in 14 different
countries and the only way that I can
describe to you the feeling I had that
freedom that came with that is to think
back to when you were a kid or maybe an
elementary school when it’s that first
day of summer break your parents drop
you off or the bus drops you off at home
and you sit there and think I’m free I
have three months to do whatever I want
to do and that freedom but feeling like
a kid again it was the first time I felt
that since I was a child and it was
intoxicating
something I was hooked on I never wanted
to let that go and so when I finished my
trip and I moved across the country to
start my full-time job I would for that
feeling and when I had an amazing
apartment in a great part of the city
with an awesome roommate everything
seemed great on paper but still
something just didn’t seem right I
desired that freedom I had of living
that minimalistic lifestyle and so I did
the thing that pretty much any twenty
three-year-old would do in that
situation and I so bleached out my
apartment I bought a van and I started
living out of it right what you guys
would do
and for the last 12 months this 1997
Dodge Ram wagon has been my home
it’s the ultimate picture of freedom I
could go wherever I wanted on the
weekends I could save more money than
ever because I didn’t have to pay
expensive San Francisco rents I could
save more time than ever because I
basically had Silicon Valley as a
shortest commute because I just lived in
the parking lot but but more importantly
than the freedom associated with it
living in a van created an even bigger
shift inside of you when you live in a
van
you can’t constantly purchase things off
of Amazon or have a massive wardrobe
because you simply just don’t have the
space for it and so because of that I
had to start critically evaluating every
single material possession that was in
my life and as I went through that
process I started to understand that it
wasn’t the things in life that brought
me long-term joy sure purchasing
something had a nice dopamine rush
associated with it and the short term
felt great but at the end of the day it
was the experiences and the people that
I shared those experiences with that
brought me long-term joy and so over
those 12 months I shifted my goals from
that of status and material accumulation
mindset to that of a pursuit of novel
experiences and for some of the honestly
one of the best years of my life because
of that but I would be lying if I told
you that living in a van was also
enshrined in rainbows first off as a 23
year old single male I will tell you
this living in a van I don’t see where
my head’s going here
living in a van doesn’t exactly up your
tinder game all right I’ll say that but
but in all seriousness in the winter it
gets cold and there’s nothing more
humbling than waking up shivering at
3:00 in the morning from an unexpected
cold front and when everything you own
is inside of a car a lot can go wrong
when you break down on the side of the
road and there’s no mechanics open to
help you fix it but even with that being
said I wouldn’t trade my van life
experience for anything because in
addition to teaching me that material
possessions are less valuable than
experiences in relationships it also
taught me that the worst case scenario
isn’t as bad as you think it is well
when you live in a van hands you really
don’t have a lot right and when you
don’t have a lot you start to realize
that you don’t have a lot to lose
and we don’t have anything to lose you
can take risks you can pursue your
passions you can chase after your dreams
in addition to that by getting back to
the basics to the fundamentals of
everything I owned and living a
minimalistic lifestyle I was able to
reconnect with my passions and my
childhood dreams and while my previous
job was well-paying and somewhat
prestigious of a job title it was on
fulfilling and every day I was left
miserable so minimalism gave me
confidence in the courage to quit my job
and to go pursue my passion even if it
is a more unconventional career path and
even if I’m not going to make really any
money but I know what you’re thinking
right now DJ you’re crazy there’s no way
I’m selling my house or leasing my
apartment to go live in a van it’s okay
I won’t judge you
but in all seriousness you don’t have to
live on the extremes to reap the
benefits of minimalism for me I didn’t
go from having this massive wardrobe to
living in a van overnight it’s a series
of baby steps over time and in addition
to that minimalism doesn’t have to take
the form of minimizing your possessions
either certainly you can follow my lead
and you can decrease your wardrobe or
your possessions or
declutter your life but you could also
do something as simple as taking your
physical photos and scanning them and
creating a digital photo album you could
minimize the hobbies that you used to
enjoy but now take more joy out of your
life than they give back and you can
also distance yourself from
relationships that no longer make you
happy
minimalism can take a plethora of
different forms and there’s really no
magnitude to the amount there’s no
minimum magnitude of the way you can
apply it to your life so undoubtedly
there’s an issue in the world today we
have more resources than any generation
prior yet we’re more unhappy than ever I
think that our society needs to shift
from that of a status and material
accumulations arms race to that of a
constant audit the people things and
behaviors that fill our lives and make a
ruthless effort to minimize those that
take more value than they give back in
return for me minimalism was an
excellent tool to catalyze this change
inside of myself and I think society can
also benefit from it at large it’s time
for us to stop filling our lives and
stop filling them meet the voids in our
lives
with meaningless possessions start
getting to the root of what really makes
us happy thank you
[Applause]
you
[Music]
Please follow and like us: