Intro: 00:00

Well, Warren Buffett said busy is the new stupid. And I just I love that because I think that we wear busy as a badge of honor that because we are pulled in so many different directions or can be pulled in so many different directions and so easily, both interrupted and distracted, that the more demands there are on our time, the more successful, the more important, the more significant we are. And that's an outside game. It doesn't. I believe it's a delusion.

I don't think it's real. Warren Buffett also says the difference between successful and very successful people is the ability to say no. And remembering that when you're saying no to something, you're actually saying yes to something you value more.

Melanie Warner: 00:50

Welcome to the Defining Moments podcast, where leaders, innovators, and everyday heroes share the moments that changed everything. These are the stories behind resilience, purpose and legacy. Now let's dive into today's defining moment.

Melanie Warner: 01:07

Hi everyone. It's Melanie Warner here with Defining Moments. Today's show we're talking about clutter. Now most people think clutter is the problem, but clutter isn't the problem. It's a symptom to something much greater.

The real problem is what we're afraid to let go of. So this is the Defining Moments podcast, the show where we uncover the decisions that change everything in your life and your business. Not the highlight reel, not the fake version people post online, but the real defining moment when staying the same becomes more painful than changing. And what happens next? I am Melanie Warner, the founder of Defining Moments Press, the host of the DefiningMoments podcast, and National Global Now global television show where we chat with authors, experts, corporate leaders, high level coaches and people who are turning their expertise into bestselling books premium brands and powerful media platforms.

This episode is brought to you by Defining Moments Press. We are a US based publishing company, and we help aspiring authors around the world to write, publish, and promote a non-fiction book to elevate their expertise, their brand, and create a meaningful impact in 30 days or less. An example of how we did this with one of our clients was Myrto. Myrto is based out of Greece, and she is a coach that helps people find impact with their goals. And she not only came and wrote a book, but she launched her book and then she spoke at the United Nations.

She's done so many amazing things. She's also been a guest on our TV show and the podcast. So you can click back on these links below in the show notes and see more about Myrto and watch her podcast episode to see how she used a book to build a global presence as an expert all over the world and speak on stages. So welcome to our episode today and I would love to introduce our special guest.

Today's guest is Andrew Mellen.

Welcome, Andrew. Thank you for being here.

Andrew Mellen: 03:04

My pleasure.

Melanie Warner: 03:06

Well, I'm excited to dive into this concept because if you happen to see what's sitting off over here to the left of my office, you would be ashamed of me right now.

Andrew Mellen: 03:16

No no no no shame, no judgment. Ever, ever.

Melanie Warner: 03:19

No shame. Or my garage. It's it's actually embarrassing because I was so like, I'm going to get rid of my storage because I hate paying for storage fees. I just hate it. And then everything ended up in my, in my garage.

And so now, now here's the thing you guys about Andrew. Andrew is a Wall Street Journal best selling author of the book Unstuff Your Life and Calling BS on Busy. And he has worked with organizations like Goldman Sachs, American Express and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Andrew's work goes far beyond organizing drawers or calendars. He helps people clear the physical clutter, the emotional stories and the unconscious patterns, keeping people overwhelmed, reactive and exhausted.

Oh my gosh, I'm getting goosebumps right now. And what makes his perspective so compelling, y'all, is that his biggest transformation started with one simple realization he had a choice. Andrew, thank you so much for being here. So excited to talk about this subject.

Andrew Mellen: 04:22

Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm excited. I love talking about this stuff.

Melanie Warner: 04:26

Well, now you mentioned that getting sober was the first time you realized you actually had a choice. Yes. So what shifted for you and was that a defining moment in your own life?

Andrew Mellen: 04:38

Oh, well, it was certainly one of the major moments in my life, of course. And I mean, it's a it's a rather personal one. It I've had several professional ones, but that is really the foundation of the discovery that I wasn't a pinball in a pinball machine, and I was just subject to the the whims of the world. But I actually had some agency, and that agency meant that I could make a choice to be fully present consistently, instead of checking out when things got too intense. You know, I grew up in a divorced household that my folks split up just as I was approaching.

Puberty was a pretty pivotal moment for for me and the churn in my personal life, really. I didn't know how to navigate it. I didn't have a lot of skills and I didn't have a lot of guidance. So the choices that were available to me were pretty limited. And one of them was basically putting myself to sleep to get myself through adolescence.

And that's what I chose. And it wasn't until I was a young adult where I discovered, oh, so many of the things that I want to do in the world require me to be fully present all the time. And and that was the that was the genesis of everything for me was that that I didn't have to put myself to sleep, that, you know, they say if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. But along with that is also it might not kill you. It's, it might be seemingly intolerable to experience.

Right. So if we, if we grow up without a lot of. It's not even really adult supervision. It's really adult support, guidance, mentorship, you know, a child is going to make the choices that's available to a child. And I didn't see a lot on the horizon.

And, and certainly putting my head down and just plowing ahead, somewhat anesthetized seemed like the strongest choice of what was available to me. You know, I, I certainly have a strong survival instinct. So I wasn't Contemplating like killing myself or checking out in that way. But, you know, some sleep meditating. Yeah.

Self-medicating certainly seemed like an easier way to navigate my trajectory into adulthood as well as, you know, playing ping pong with my parents and their, you know, push me, pull you behavior.

Melanie Warner: 07:10

Do you think that that the way that you were raised affects your ability to make decisions? Because if you didn't have that supervision where you had the guidance and the wisdom of parents that were supportive in helping you make decisions where you were kind of left alone to your own devices to make decisions. Do you think that that affected your ability to make them?

Andrew Mellen: 07:29

Oh, I think, you know, there's a glass half empty and a glass half full side of that question, right? I mean, without a lot of adult supervision, I connected the dots the best way I could. It taught me a fierce sense of independence that has served me both personally and professionally as an adult. You know, once I, once I did get sober and was fully present consistently, my ability to see things clearly and to rely on myself, I was amplified in many ways. So I, I don't regret the journey to here.

You know, it's I mean, we all walk our own path. This has been mine. Many, many people. We get here how we get here.

Melanie Warner: 08:23

So why is that realization? I have a choice. So life changing for people.

Andrew Mellen: 08:28

Well, because I think whether we're talking about self-medicating or we're talking about the accumulation of physical objects or any sort of spiritual, emotional, psychological blocks that we might have. Those things are very real obstacles, whether we can hold them in our hands or not, and recognizing that we have agency and can make different choices about what stops us or what doesn't stop us. And there are as many different ways to move through obstacles, right? I mean, we can plow over them in a rather aggressive way, which might then create further consequences that we have to clean up or deal with down the road. We can sidestep them, we can walk around them, we can back up and go in another direction.

However, we choose to meet those obstacles certainly says something about both our upbringing as well as our training as people, right? I mean, I mean, again, I mean both personal training and professional training. So we want to be smart about recognizing where choice is and the. The immediate desire for relief doesn't always want to be. The only factor that we're considering when we're making choices, which is how I was feeling as an adolescent, right?

Like I just wanted relief from what felt like almost constant, if not constant stimulation and drama, family drama. So I just wanted quiet. And the only way that I could figure out of all the choices that were available to me was sleep, you know, metaphorically speaking. As an adult. And when we think about clutter, when we think about time management and trying to, to be fully present and show up and get the things done that matter to us that are in alignment with our values.

First of all, we need to know what's important to us, and then we need to be able to execute on those values so that we're not running around on the volunteer fire department putting out everyone else's fires, and then we get to the end of the day and we think, oh my gosh, I've been crazy busy today. I've got nothing to show for it. And at that point, we have basically two choices we can tell ourselves, well, tomorrow will be different with no plan to make tomorrow different. Or I'll just stay a little bit later. Now that it's quiet, I'll just stay later and I'll do the things that I didn't get to earlier, which as a one off solution, is not unsustainable, but it is certainly not a recipe for sustained success.

Right? We can't burn ourselves out working overtime to close the gap between what we did that was unimportant. Perhaps not even urgent, definitely not important. And and just churn through our, you know, our rest and our recovery.

Melanie Warner: 11:36

Yeah. I kind of find myself getting stuck between the, the want to's and the have to's. And I, I find that if I have any gaps of time, like anytime I have extra time, I tend to squander it instead of put it into like cleaning things up, like my garage. So I feel like that's a point of a avoidance to some extent. Yeah.

And I realized like, when I went through my divorce, I had so much uncertainty about my future. And that made me want to hang on to things that uncertainty. And I realized that was more of a mental block or like mindset issue of just wanting to hang on. What if I need that someday? Or I'm not supposed to sell this because the court said you can't.

And then I just ended up with so much stuff. Sure. That all had some kind of emotional weight attached to it. And I think a lot of people get stuck there. And also when they're empty nesters, when they're trying to downsize, as they start to get older in life, or they start their career, like when you're in that life transition, I think there's also that uncertainty that creates clutter for people as well.

Oh.

Andrew Mellen: 12:38

I think the, the key takeaway there is life cycle events will trigger that story of well, but what about right? When there's when and which is the theme of this show, right? When there is uncertainty, we tend to fall back on story. We like comfort. The brain basically wants to expend the least amount of energy possible and keep us safe.

So that's what the brain is wired to do. It doesn't matter how we feel. The brain is constantly scanning the horizon looking for where is danger and, and let's spend the least amount of energy as possible because we might need it someday. We might need the energy someday to survive. We might need this, this extra bolt and nut.

Someday we might need that sofa. Someday we might need that book someday. And it's all tied to story and often triggered by life cycle events, the loss of a parent, the loss of a child, relocation, the ending of a relationship, the beginning of a relationship. All of those transition moments make things that much more acute and accelerated.

Melanie Warner: 13:53

You know, I remember having this emotional feeling when my kids were older. Now they're adults. I have a young one at 17 still at home, and I had kind of kept their rooms the same. I don't know why I just kept all this stuff, even though they outgrew the toys. I mean, I had like original Star Wars posters on the wall from 25 years ago, you know, 30 years ago.

And I was like, I valued those things. And I thought they did. And then when they left, you know, to go out in the world, they didn't kind of they really didn't want this stuff. So like, I remember taking it and gathering it up, asking, do you want this? They're like, no.

So I gathered everything up and I went to goodwill and I donated it and it was like three carloads full. And I remember driving away, looking back and seeing everything in this bin. And I just started crying because I realized like, you know, it bothered me that these were things that used to mean so much to them. And now they're just things taking up space in their life, right? And it's just junk, you know? The shifting identity from like this used to be important and now it's not. And that's how I felt as an empty nester. I used to be important to their life. And now I feel like this stuff was representing how what, you know, like the same thing psychologically, you know what I mean?

Andrew Mellen: 15:12

I do, and it's curious. There's just two things I want to interject there. Right? It didn't become junk. It just was no longer valuable and important to them.

Certainly. So I mean.

Melanie Warner: 15:24

But other people found joy in it. And that was the thing like, right. I remember this guy, I was so reluctant to sell these things because they were sentimental to them, even though they don't care about him. And then in my head, I started to rationalize. I went, oh, well, someday they may have kids and then they'll regret getting rid of it.

And this is the story in my head. And I'll never forget, this adult man came to the door and was so giddy, like a little kid to get the Star Wars posters, like he was so happy. He was almost in tears and I felt so good. I felt so much joy knowing that this brought joy to somebody else. Like it used to them, you know?

Right. And, and then it's I was able to finally start getting de-cluttered. And then I started to apply it to other people in my life. Right. Like there were people I was hanging on to that no longer served me either.

And so when I finally started to organize these things, it shifted my life, my relationships, the, my finances and my business. Like I wasn't hanging on to things that no longer served me. And I think that's really the biggest metaphor for clutter and why we hang on to things and people sometimes even.

Andrew Mellen: 16:33

Oh, I agree completely. Yeah. It's just, it's, it's important that we don't because it becomes sticky in another way when we label something as junk. Yes. When we when we feel like we have to denigrate it to release it.

I think that then we run the risk of possibly ending up with regret. We want to be able to appreciate it for the role that it played at one time, and then release it cleanly so that we're not, you know, we're not crapping on it. And we're also not over overly celebrating it. We're seeing it clear eyed and we're just recognizing it. And it is curious, right.

It's a curious thing that you extrapolated. They don't like they don't want the Star Wars posters. Mom isn't as important to them anymore. You're you're just as important to them, just in different ways. Right?

Yeah.

Melanie Warner: 17:28

I felt like their old toys that just now, they didn't mean as much. I mean, and that was my association. That was the story in my head that I attached to it, which is why I think I felt so emotional. Right. Because if you know the empty nester, grief is grief.

I mean, you're grieving the loss of like these little babies that no longer need you for 30 years. That's all you do is worry about them every day. And then all of a sudden they're, they don't need you anymore. Or at least it feels that way. And so I realized I was holding on to these things to make me feel better.

Right. And, and sentimental to me. And what was interesting is when you start to, you know, see how this stuff adds up in your life and how much it just feels like heaviness sometimes when you just have stuff sitting everywhere. And I remember everything I bought, I remember where I bought it, like I have this really strong association because I'm very intentional in how I buy things. And when I buy, I don't just buy stuff to buy stuff.

And I tend to keep things for a long time. Like I have shirts that are older than my kids in my closet. You know what I mean? Like clothes that are special to me, that are that mean something. And I'm wondering, you know, I've often fantasized about having meetings for like, OCD support groups, thinking if they come to my house that they're going to be compelled to clean everything up for me.

Sorry. Because I'm like, I'm fantasizing, like, how do I, I feel so overwhelmed because I'm very ADHD and I've been like, my ex-husband was very OCD. And that was this contention that we, it was strain on our marriage every day because I just if I put something away, I forget about it. Right. Like a bill or something.

And I have to leave everything sitting out. I have to leave all the food sitting out or I'll forget what I have and it goes rotten. He's the opposite. He wants to sweep everything under the rug and not have anything visually unappealing anywhere. Like no clutter.

And. And he's a visual processing person who is very, very talented as a as a director and photographer. So he's, he's noticing things visually, like in our family growing up, like we couldn't go to subway because it was too yellow, right? Like this would bug him to have anything out of place. And whereas I we're like the odd couple, I was like the creative genius behind everything where I would, like, leave things sitting out.

I would have piles of things sitting everywhere. And it was an organized mess. And I knew exactly where it was. And I hated having to mates like they came today. And I don't know where anything is.

It's driving me crazy, right? So I think we all kind of get stuck in these patterns of, of what we do. But I think it's interesting to see how that ADHD versus OCD is constantly fighting inside of me.

Andrew Mellen: 20:19

Well, sure. Yeah, I mean, stuff, discordant relationships bring their own challenges. Certainly 100%.

Melanie Warner: 20:26

Absolutely. Well, that was a big contention in our in our marriage for years because we we saw the world differently in how we.

Andrew Mellen: 20:34

Literally and figuratively.

Melanie Warner: 20:35

Yeah. What we did with our stuff every day. And it was, it was we fight about it all the time. So I think that that's so important for people to bring this forward and talk about what's happening in their lives now. Tell me a little bit more about your history.

Like how what is your defining moment or how did you end up in this space?

Andrew Mellen: 20:54

Oh, well, 30 years ago now, I was laid off from a theater that I was running in Seattle, Washington, and that was I mean, when we think about those lifecycle moments, that was a pretty dark one for me professionally, right? I had never been I mean, I had been fired from restaurant jobs, jobs that didn't matter to me. That was a job that did matter to me. And I had actually moved to Seattle for that job. And when I got laid off, it was very unexpected and, and pretty upsetting.

So I stayed in Seattle for about six months and I was trying to find full time work. Couldn't find full time work. I through friends of friends, I connected with somebody who was producing an award ceremony at the Kennedy Center. I was invited to co-produce it with them, and one of our awardees was a Nobel Peace Prize winner in New York. So I went to his office to get some photographs so I could put together a slideshow when he came to get his award.

And in the process of doing that, I was in his files for several hours. And they were miss. Things were misfiled, mislabeled. Things had been lent out, never returned. It was they were messy files.

And I spent, like I said, about 2 or 3 hours digging through them to find what I was looking for. And by the time I was finished, his wife invited me into. They had an adjoining apartment and sat me down on the sofa, gave me a Diet Coke and said, you know, so what's your story? Who are you? And I told her I was laid off from this theater in Seattle.

I'm moving back east. I'm going to do this gig in DC and then I'll move back to the city. And she said, what would you like to organize our photographs for us? And I started to cry. I was so moved.

I mean, this is a man who I had known of for many, many years and was quite accomplished in the world. And I said, that would be amazing. I would love to do that for you. So we made a date for me to go to work December 20th, 1996, and the day before I was supposed to go to work, the phone rang.

Their assistant called up and said, something unexpected has happened.

They have to travel. Let's do it in January. And so we picked a date in January. January. The phone rang.

Something has come up. Let's reschedule for February. Pick a date in February. February becomes March. March.

They call up and say, when we're ready to proceed, we'll get back in touch with you. So I don't go to work for them. But I do tell every person I meet, I got this amazing gig. I'm going to create a comprehensive photographic archive for a Nobel Peace Prize winner. So then a friend of mine refers me to an accountant who needed a filing system.

I built that for her. Then she started referring her clients to me so people would show up literally with a duffel bag full of receipts saying, I haven't filed my taxes in five years. There's letters in here from the IRS. I'm freaked out. I don't want to go to jail.

Can you make sense out of this before something really bad happens to me?

Melanie Warner: 23:45

Yeah. My attitude is, when I get. I've been audited. I mean, chronically, so I just literally I hand them a a big thing of receipts and go, if you're gonna audit me, then here you go. And I like purposely don't want it to be organized for them.

No, I'm just kidding.

Andrew Mellen: 24:00

Yeah. I've supported a few clients through audits. I haven't seen an auditor that would receive that. Well.

Melanie Warner: 24:06

No. And that doesn't help your case, by the way.

Andrew Mellen: 24:08

Yeah, exactly. So so I would organize their files. I'd put put it in QuickBooks, give it to the accountant, the accountant, file their taxes. And they would say, oh my God, you're a genius. You saved my life.

And then they would tell all their friends, you'll never believe what happened. I gave this guy a pile of garbage. He turned it into my tax returns and they would say, who is this guy? I need somebody just like that. That's how this business began.

I never thought that I would become the most organized man in America, that I'd write a Wall Street Journal best selling book that the Metropolitan Museum of Art would hire me to help them restructure their conservation department. The New York Mets would hire me to come work for them Goldman Sachs, American Express. I mean, these places that seemed completely beyond me, that I would write an article that was in Oprah magazine, that I would be on CBS Sunday Morning, that I'd be on NPR. All of these things that seemed so far beyond my reach became part of the work.

Melanie Warner: 25:08

I love that that is so cool. Congratulations. Well, thanks. And from your book as well, the book helped you build authority and credibility in that space. So what happened?

You know, you wrote this book, became a Wall Street Journal. Congratulations. Like best bestseller.

Andrew Mellen: 25:24

Well, that journey was also. That was the same thing I. I had wanted to write a book for a while. I just wasn't sure what. I mean.

I knew what it would be about in the sense that it would be about organizing and decluttering, but I wasn't like, I wasn't sure what the book was, and I didn't want to just write a book to write a book. And I also didn't want to write a book on spec. So I happened to meet at the time, the then editor in chief of Oprah magazine at a friend's birthday party, and we started talking and she said, I think there's something here for the magazine. You should come in and have lunch. So I went to the office.

I had lunch with Amy. I had lunch with it was her, Gayle King and the entire senior editorial team at the time, and they grilled me for an hour and a half. They all ate lunch. I literally took two bites of my sandwich. I left the office with my lunch in a little bag and went and had lunch someplace else because I, I, they I was answering so many questions from 6 or 7 different people that there was no time for me to actually eat.

It was it was a it was a lovely hour and a half, and I was very hungry by the time I left. So the the upshot of that was that I was going to write an article for the magazine. I wasn't sure what it was going to be, whether it was going to be an article, whether it would be a column. But I reached out then to a friend's literary agent and said, I just had this meeting with Oprah magazine. I don't know what is going to come of it, but I don't feel confident and capable of negotiating with them.

Can you help me with this? And that's when my agent said, now my agent, Jim Levine, said, well, come in, let's talk about it and come up with a strategy. So I did. And during that conversation, he said, so what's the what do you want? What's what's the plan?

I said, you know, I'd like a television show. I'd like a radio call in show. I'd like to write a book. And he said, well, why don't we start with the book and we'll go from there. And I said, that sounds great.

So we put together a proposal and we took it out to the marketplace. And we had, I think we we sent it out to, I think, nine different publishing houses, 4 or 5 of them bid on it. And at the time, Penguin, before it became Penguin Random House Penguin was our. They offered me the most money and they offered the best deal, and I really. My editor was lovely, as was the as was the publisher.

Melanie Warner: 27:43

That's so awesome. Yeah. So, you know, you left this long term career in theater. Not quite right. You wouldn't have quit.

Think about it if that hadn't happened, which was a defining moment. So at the time, you were bummed out, depressed, thinking, wow, I lost this job that I loved. Right. And you probably felt that this, this experience was artistically successful, you know, maybe fulfilling, but, but maybe struggling right in some way. And yeah, a whole new career that, you know, that you weren't planning on that was born from that loss or that defining moment.

Andrew Mellen: 28:18

Yes, there were there were two distinct moments in the theatre as a career that tie into that theme. The first was the getting laid off in 1994 94 to 96, 96, getting laid off in 96. And then I while I was doing this work as pick up work, right. I mean, I was, I was still looking for full time administrative work, running a theater, and I was still doing some freelance directing and acting. And I had just directed a play Off-Broadway that was critically successful.

Really not. It was not enjoyable for me. And that was another defining moment where I was standing on my stoop in New York on East 80th Street, talking to a friend and very clearly said, I'm going to put the theater on a shelf. I'm going to pursue this organizing thing full time. I don't know what will come of it.

But that was another, you know, glass half empty, glass half full. It was really saying yes to an opportunity that presented itself to me, even though it didn't line up with what I thought I should be doing. And it was curious that many of my friends who were artists pushed back and said, but you're an excellent artist. How can you let that go and go do this other thing? And for me, so much of the work that I did in the theater was really service based.

It was really about trying to prompt some sort of catharsis and epiphany in the audience. And the beautiful thing about this other work, I mean, in the beginning, when it was just 1 to 1 direct client services, it was the scope of it was pretty small. I knew that that wouldn't last, that that's not where I was going to stay. That scaling one to many was really the journey for me. The book is a piece of that speaking and teaching on stages, running my own programs.

All of that was, I mean, That theater background informed my ability to be on a stage, talking to 5000 people and be completely comfortable and help them to catalyze a transformation without an extended metaphor sitting between us, right? Where it's just direct transmission. Do this. Don't do this, try this, don't try that. As opposed to, here's a story, see if you can connect the dots.

And if you do, you win the prize and you get a transformation. And if you don't, I just confused you for

2.5 hours in a dark room. So I love.

Melanie Warner: 30:43

I love that.

Andrew Mellen: 30:44

Yeah. I just.

Melanie Warner: 30:45

Go, oh.

Andrew Mellen: 30:45

Go ahead. No you go.

Melanie Warner: 30:47

No, no, no. I love that because I as you're talking, I kind of had this epiphany to like, I mean, you literally experienced what your future clients would experience, right? You talk a lot about letting go of what no longer serves you.

Andrew Mellen: 31:01

Yes.

Melanie Warner: 31:01

And you experience that you, even though you enjoyed it, you were burnt out and feeling overwhelmed and personally miserable, even though you had chosen that. And then some people stay stuck in that because, well, I chose this. Well, I went to law school. I went to med school. I, I'm expected to do this.

And they're so afraid to make that shift. And I call that shrinking your dream to fit your income. A lot of people do that. So why do people hold on so long after something stops working and they know it's not working? Why do people still hold on to that?

Andrew Mellen: 31:33

Well, I'm not a clinical psychologist, and I would venture to say, certainly speaking about myself, for me, the choice was continue to do something because it's what I had done historically, and I had achieved a certain amount of success at or pivot because an opportunity presented itself and see what was possible. And I think when we allow the, you know, they talk about fear and faith can't exist in the same place. And I think that if we're in that place of fear or scarcity or, this is my. I define myself in this way. And this doesn't fit with the definition, so I must reject it.

If the point is, I show up every day to participate in my own life in the best way possible with the least amount of friction possible. I don't necessarily need to be in control of everything. I just have to be in control of myself. So it allowed me the ability to stand on that stoop and say, I'm going to shelve this and pick this up and explore it, because I wasn't married to. I am an artist, and there's only one way to create in the world.

The work that I do is very creative and it's also very therapeutic. While again, I'm not a therapist and yet the work is transformative. So I get to use all of the things that interest me, all of the skills that I have available, and I'm well compensated for it. And it's useful in the world. So that is aligned with my values more than there's a rigid definition of how I'm supposed to move through time and space.

And I reject everything that doesn't keep that box in place. I don't need a box. I have tried throughout my life to join things in the hopes that I would fit in to groups of things already existing. And it has. The universe has demonstrated to me over and over again that I am.

While we are all unique, I am unusual in how I move through time and space and there are not a lot of groups that are that are more interested in, in, in institutional harmony than they are in service and expansion and creativity. I don't work well in those places. I don't work well in, in systems that are rigid and not dynamic. So whether those are whether those are org professional organizations or associations, I've tried to join several of those, and I tend to leave them because I I'm not easily contained.

Melanie Warner: 34:50

So what's actually harder holding on or letting go?

Andrew Mellen: 34:55

Well, if you are leaning into the fear, probably letting go is. Until holding on is. And it's why you don't need to be a Zen monk to be quiet enough to sit with yourself and recognize. What is more painful? Staying here and doubling down.

Or it's not even admitting or accepting defeat as much as acknowledging this might be played out. And I don't want to keep fighting, and I don't want to keep doing this with either the same returns or diminishing returns. I mean, I'm doing the same thing actually right now in San Diego, where I'm living these days, right? I'm selling a condo that I bought, which was really a reaction to the two hurricanes a year and a half ago in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Right.

Milton and Helene blew through my condo in Florida, literally. Helene flooded our lobby, and then Milton blew in the windows in my apartment. So everything was destroyed in the apartments. And I started spending time in California, where which was one of the two places that I was going to move when I left New York, anyway, was I ended up in Saint Pete because I was still oriented towards New York. So it seemed closer to go 2.5 hours than six hours across the country.

Yeah. But San Diego was the other place that was on the list. So that when I was homeless from Florida, I started spending time in San Diego. And I my orientation historically has been, if I'm going to be someplace, I should just buy. So I bought not the best choice.

Now, 16 months later, I'm here. It's a beautiful condo and I'm sitting thinking, I really want to go sit on a beach for three months and finish my next book. I don't need to be a homeowner in San Diego. If if I was going to allow my ego to make my choices for me, like I would have attachment to, well, what what are people going to think? They're going to think I can't afford my condo?

Or that, you know that I have to admit that I made a mistake. Who cares? I, if I would have been thinking clearly and not reacting to the trauma of two hurricanes, I would have rented, I would have said yes to San Diego. No, I don't need to own anything yet. Let me just be here.

But you know, old habits. I was like, oh, I'll go shopping. That's what I do. I move and I shop. And so I bought and now I'm thinking, I don't need to own this and I don't need to worry what anybody else says.

The same thing happened. I had a house in Milford, Pennsylvania, US, 80 miles outside of New York for eight years. I wrote Unstuff Your Life at That Lake. And it's the same thing like you and your kids and the stuff, right? I thought I was going to have that house forever, so I poured a bunch of money into it.

It was my dream house. And when the book came out, when this book came out, I was very clear that I was going to want to go on the road and teach and speak, and I did not want to be spending my weekends sitting in a lake house anymore. And I, I came to me so clearly in a shower. I was having an argument. I was the I was the president of the Property Owners Association in Pennsylvania.

And I was having an argument with the treasurer of the Property Owners Association in my shower on a Sunday morning. He wasn't in the shower with me, but I was having both sides of the conversation and I realized, oh my God, I'm arguing with Chip by myself in the shower. I could just quit the board, right? Like I had done everything that I had planned to do for that board. I could just quit the board.

And the next thought after that was, and I could sell my house. And the same thing as I said when I decided decided not to be an artist in a particular way. So many people said, oh my God, but it's a beautiful house. You built it and you it's your dream house. And I said, yes, and all of those skills will transfer with me.

I can build another dream house anytime I want. I'm ready to move on. I don't need a lake house to define me. And letting it go doesn't mean that I made a mistake buying it. I'm just.

I'm done with it. And it's the same thing here. I feel like that whatever the next chapter is for me, I will stay located in Southern California, but I don't need to own a condo. I really do want to go sit on a beach, probably in Costa Rica or Panama or Mexico and write for three months. And I don't, you know, it's.

Melanie Warner: 39:34

It's, I love that. Yeah.

Andrew Mellen: 39:36

It's that ego attachment of because I made a choice. I have to worry about what people will think if I change my mind, right? They're going to think that I'm, I'm flaky or I'm mercurial or I can't be dependent upon. I can be depended on to live in alignment with my values every single day. When my values shift, my behavior shifts with them.

Melanie Warner: 39:58

Wow, I love that. I also think that we as Americans especially, we make decisions that I believed my marriage would last forever.

Andrew Mellen: 40:06

Of course, nobody goes into marriage thinking they're going to get divorced.

Melanie Warner: 40:09

I'm going to have this business forever. So in my mind, everything is long term. Like I think very long term. I didn't date just to date. It was very intentional.

When I bought a property, it was like, okay, I bought a house that was a vacation rental that was turnkey. So I could, you know, have other people pay off my mortgage. That's how I looked at it. It was going to be an investment, a retirement expense. And then, you know, I bought a vacation house thinking, oh, my family and friends are going to come visit.

And then they never do because they're busy. And so then I just have this really expensive $4,000 a month payment, you know what I mean? It's expensive to carry another house if you're not even there. Right? And like, it's, it's like we, we end up creating things that, that become intentional with good intentions.

But there's a reason they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions because then you end up, you know, justifying the other things that you do. Like you said, oh, well, if I sell it, it means I, you know, I, it was a mistake to buy it. So I do understand that. So you close the door on a career before you knew what was on the other side. How did you make peace with uncertainty?

Andrew Mellen: 41:22

Well, I do have a meditation practice, which certainly helps. And again, I'm, you know, I'm not a Zen monk. I don't sit for hours a day meditating. I my meditation practice is somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes a day. And it isn't every day, but I think I'm, I think I spend enough time in quiet reflection to be able to quiet the noise down both, you know, mental noise as well as emotional noise that that churn of what what what's going to happen?

I don't know what's going to happen, but I do remember two things that people have said to me that have been influential for me. One, a mentor shared with me many, many years ago, inside every disappointment is the seed of an equal or greater opportunity. And that has proven to be true every single time. So even, you know, letting go of this, letting go of this condo, which may or may not be a disappointment, right? I mean, those hurricanes were certainly there was certainly some disappointment when I had to walk into that condo that Friday morning after Milton had withdrawn from Saint Peter, blown over Saint Pete and saw literally standing water on my bedroom floor, rugs soaked, artwork destroyed.

It was the windows, literally just the the the Venetian blinds flopping in the in the window. It was very Disturbing. And while those feelings are real, we're real. Are real. I could also rely on what.

Skip has shared with me that inside every disappointment, the seed of an equal or greater opportunity. I don't necessarily even need to know what the opportunity is, but I can. I can lean into that thinking. If it isn't. If it didn't kill me, I wasn't in the condo.

If it's if it didn't kill me, it's going to make me stronger. I'm going to survive it. And the other thing that somebody shared with me that was in a mastermind, I was in a mastermind group with everything is always working out for me.

Melanie Warner: 43:33

For your good.

Andrew Mellen: 43:34

Yeah. And even if sometimes it doesn't feel like that, it doesn't look like that. It doesn't feel like that consistently. In hindsight, without again, spinning a bunch of story to make things prettier than they are. Because it doesn't mean that there's no pain, there's no grief, there's no, you know, sadness.

There's no anger. The whole panoply of emotions on the other side of whatever the traumatic event was, is the awareness that I'm safe, right? I mean, in my case, I still have all my senses. I have all my limbs. I am mobile in the world.

I'm, I'm healthy. And from this point, all things are possible. So with that in mind, what is what's next? Rather than looking backwards on the loss or the the transition. I'm focused forward.

I feel even at my age, the best of my life is ahead of me in this moment, now and to come. I don't feel like I'm in the end of something. I feel like I'm just in the next chapter of something.

Melanie Warner: 44:44

You say busyness is a delusion and an addiction in your book. What do you mean by that? Busyness. Not business. busyness.

Andrew Mellen: 44:52

Yeah, I think that well, Warren Buffett said busy is the new stupid. And I just I love that because I think that we where busy as a badge of honor that because we are pulled in so many different directions or can be pulled in so many different directions and so easily, both interrupted and distracted, that the more demands there are on our time, the more successful, the more important, the more significant we are. And that's an outside game. It doesn't. I believe it's a delusion.

I don't think it's real. Warren Buffett also says the difference between successful and very successful people is the ability to say no. And remembering that when you're saying no to something, you're actually saying yes to something you value more. Again, glass half empty. What am I losing?

Glass half full? What am I doubling down on that is already important to me. Now, there are times when we discover the things that were important to us are no longer important to us, and hopefully in those moments, we will let them go. But. And when we are trying to make that decision, we have limited bandwidth.

Where do we want to direct our attention and our focus? The choice is I'm either going to be busy doing a lot of things that are not important to me, or I'm going to shut out all of that noise and focus in on the things that are important to me. And one of the things that we often do is we do a lot of the little things, thinking we're going to buy ourselves a big block of unstructured time where we can do the big work, right? Where we can have big thoughts and lots of time to be creative. But it's actually the opposite.

By the time you're done putting out all those little fires or doing all those little chores, you're exhausted. So your only hope then is to rest and start again. We we would be better off. Although it feels counterintuitive in the beginning to resist or or avoid or or ignore the noise and focus in on the things that are important first. It's the same thing.

It's the it's the example that we've all seen with the rocks and the sand and the water and the bowl, right? If you put the sand in first or you put the water in first and then try to put the big rocks in, the water spills out the side or the sand prevents the big rocks from getting in. But if you put the big rocks in as the foundation, and then you pour the sand in the water around them, suddenly they all fit in the bowl. It's the same size bowl. It just feels uncomfortable.

Certainly for anybody who's either a perfectionist, a people pleaser, or both to to resist the busyness that's around us and stay focused because it it isn't externally sexy to just do one thing at a time and to say no. The result is you. You can write a book. You can make a play. You can.

Melanie Warner: 47:59

You have 100 hours. You can binge watch a TV show, or you can write a book, or you can create a new offer in your company. Like there's so much more you can do. And it doesn't even take 50 hours or 100 hours. Like when you're, when you know the process and you're focused.

Andrew Mellen: 48:13

Of course, you.

Melanie Warner: 48:14

Realize that the rest of this is just your, I call it the rodeo in your head. That's like distracting you. And that fear is robbing other people of their own transformation. Yeah. Right.

I think of all the people you've influenced and helped, and if you hadn't got organized in your own head, in your own life, first to be your first customer and figure out the system and the process, you wouldn't be in a position to help somebody else. So you're defining moment in your story actually, was you a few months ahead of your clients? Right. And like, this is the thing. Most people think they have to become this guru before they can help somebody.

But the truth is, you just need to be 1 or 2 chapters ahead of your potential audience.

Andrew Mellen: 48:56

Yes.

Melanie Warner: 48:57

So why do you think so many people confuse being busy with being valuable?

Andrew Mellen: 49:01

Well, there's a lot of.

Andrew Mellen: 49:04

Noise and a certain amount of commerce that is tied to busyness and distraction. Certainly, meta Facebook would not be the multibillion dollar business that it was if if it was built on a platform of moving slowly with with few things happening on it, right. The entire social media world and then curiously. Right. I mean, even when we think about virtual reality is, again, I'm all for creative expression, video games and virtual realities, alternate realities as places to experiment.

And at the same time, there's on some level, no there there. It's just a it's a it's a it's a big piece of living art. So you can spend time there. It's hard to live there and actually create something that translates back out into a, a world that we can all experience and share at the same time. So I think that we, we society puts a lot of value on being in demand.

When we think about media personalities, when we think about who gets the attention, it's the the scarcity of their time's very valuable. They must be important. And that's who I want. I don't want the person who returns the phone call right away. They must not have any clients.

They must have too much time on their hands. I want the elusive person. I mean, we see it play out in interpersonal relationships, right? So many of us grew up thinking the person who ignores us is the person we want to date, that the person who doesn't return our phone calls or our text messages, they're, they're something mysterious and alluring about that, as opposed to the person who's too responsive. If they're that available, there must be something wrong with them.

I don't want that person. I want the person I have to work to get their attention. And I think that, again, if we take what is most personal and extrapolate on it, it continues to play itself out in our professional lives. We we want the best. And what is presented as the best is unavailable.

So it sets up the whole. It perpetuates that whole scarcity model that if you are in demand and unavailable and elusive, you must be better than somebody who is available and easily, easily interacted with. And, and curiously right. You could be, you could be a very strict, disciplined gatekeeper of your own time and still completely accessible when you choose to be.

Melanie Warner: 52:12

Do you think some people stay overwhelmed because slowing down would force them to have to face themselves? Maybe they're avoiding something.

Andrew Mellen: 52:22

Or they are avoiding something. I think just like the stuff behind the stuff that keeps people attached, as you said. Right? I mean, the, the, the acknowledgement that life is transitory and your children need you in different ways, and the way that you were used to being needed and wanted and loved by them was no longer there, but the objects stood in for those relationships. When you were ready to make that transition and say, I will always be their parent, and I will have whatever relationship I have with them today in in this world, these totems to a past relationship are no longer necessary as surrogates for the relationship itself.

So as we start to get clearer about the choices that we're making, it becomes easier to set things down and to and to focus in on what we want, and likewise to set aside the things that we don't want, we don't want anymore that no longer serve us however we do it. So it's, it's that attachment. And then if we zoom out and look at it through that Buddhist lens, right? I mean, pain is a part of life. Suffering is optional.

If you stub your toe, that's real. You. You're not going to meditate yourself out of feeling the pain from stubbing your toe. If you continue to refeel the pain, that's about you seeking some sort of stimulation and sensation even after the pain has subsided, you're like, oh boy, that was really painful earlier today.

I want to relive the pain.

That's all you. The pain's gone, but now you're reliving it. And that was that was another thing that I discovered a long time ago that really fascinated me. The the Latin root for resentment is ressentir, which is to refeel something. And so again, particularly in the work that I do with people, where there is attachment and trauma and sometimes resentment and expectations around physical objects and then intangible objects.

This idea that the resentment is fostered by us refiling the grievance or the pain or the trauma far after the the triggering event has happened and that once I connected those dots, I was like, oh, right, I just don't need to feel that again. I felt it fully when it happened. I don't need to refeel it. I'd like to feel whatever is actually happening in this moment.

Melanie Warner: 55:03

What's the emotional payoff? That people get from staying busy?

Andrew Mellen: 55:07

Well, I think there's they feel significant, they feel important. And it might be that buffer that they don't if they are uncomfortable with their own company, that the idea of sitting still and being quiet is seemingly unendurable for them. I just heard this thing. I was just listening to a podcast earlier today where Brene Brown was talking about the discomfort of being vulnerable. It lasts typically about eight minutes.

And then on the other side of it, it's it's no longer as uncomfortable as it was like the first eight minutes are the most acute. And I think that it's similar when we think about not being busy, that the beginning of not being busy feels like, oh my God, my life is empty. There's a void. And then things start to percolate up. Either ideas percolate up, all of those creative ideas that we've been not able to access.

When we think about writer's block or things like that, if you actually sit still and be quiet and just allow things to percolate up, they will in the absence of overstimulation and noise. So I think that the payoff comes from the constant stimulation allows you to not sit with yourself. And if you don't trust yourself, if you don't know yourself, if you are uncomfortable with where you are or who you are in the moment, and you think again that somehow you are static. And this is how I always must be. You might have a story that says, I've always been this way.

Well, maybe. Maybe you've often been this way. But few of us are all or nothing. Anything. So that ability to just allow the shades of gray to enter on the other side of that is true liberation and freedom.

You just have to go through that dark hallway to get there. And the hallway might be 30s. It might be eight minutes, but I think a lot of people are freaked out about that, and they'd rather just stay on the, on the other side, on the, on this side of it, on the busy side of it, rather than getting through to the other side.

Melanie Warner: 57:33

So you said suffering is not the price of meaningful work. That it's deeply ingrained belief for a lot of people, right, is that they have to suffer in order to get what they want. Like, where do you think that comes from?

Andrew Mellen: 57:48

Well, I think there's certainly the, the. The story of the tortured artist or the suffering artist that you have.

Andrew Mellen: 58:01

Yeah.

Melanie Warner: 58:01

Like Van Gogh, you.

Andrew Mellen: 58:02

Know.

Andrew Mellen: 58:03

Right. That you I mean, Van Gogh, I never met the man. Right. But it seems like from what we can tell, that there was some severe depression there, possibly some alcohol abuse and some mental illness. So those things, they made great art and they also informed somebody who wasn't super comfortable on the planet.

A lot of the times is what it appears from the outside. I mean, I wasn't there, so I can't speak to it firsthand. But based on the things that I've read and I mean, his artwork is unlike anything I've ever seen in the world. Right. That being at the Van Gogh.

Melanie Warner: 58:40

They say that Starry Night is was the view from when he was put into a mental institution. He could only look.

Andrew Mellen: 58:48

Out the window.

Melanie Warner: 58:49

And Starry Night was actually his view from that space. And I, I, I never realized, like you, someone could be suffering so much and still create something that's so beautiful for others. Right? And I think that's the beauty of art. But one of the things I think that is so amazing about what you teach is somebody who is an artist and has that visual art, but also helps find meaning in the organizational side.

It's managing that left and right brain, like bringing so much peace to people to realize you don't have to suffer to have art or to be good at something 100%.

Andrew Mellen: 59:25

And it is an interesting thing, right? That Plenty of artists that I have worked with in this work come with that story that, oh, I'm creative or organization is elusive for me. Picasso. We might have all kinds of opinions about how he moved through time and space, right? And his relationship with women and other things.

And at the same time, he was the first artist to become a millionaire. Not that that in and of itself means that he was a better artist than anybody else. But he was clearly a smart business person and also a very successful technician. He created a new form of painting in Cubism, right? I mean, he, he had mastered drawing so precisely and had reached a limit of thinking.

This isn't enough to convey what it is that I'm seeing. I need a new way to express something built on a foundation. I mean, he didn't just make up Cubism from thin air. He built it off of photorealism. The idea that somehow you can't be organized, that your left brain and your right brain can't work in harmony with each other, that that if you are creative, you therefore must be disorganized.

And also that if you are very organized, you couldn't possibly be very creative.

Melanie Warner: 1:00:50

Right.

Melanie Warner: 1:00:50

That you don't have to be this extreme artist who doesn't know how to balance a checkbook.

Melanie Warner: 1:00:54

Right.

Melanie Warner: 1:00:55

And I think about some of the greatest artists, even like directors, you know, I've, I've learned, you know, Steven Spielberg had, you know, was manic depressive, had he had dyslexia, you know, like, but yet his talents came out in such huge magnitude in other ways. And there were a lot of really well-known directors who were visually visual processors who had a hard time taking medication for being manic depressive or bipolar because they were convinced that the medication would temper their visual space and their visual art. So then they ended up suffering in personal relationships. Almost all of them got divorced, and when they learned to balance that part of their life, they created some of the greatest films of all time, you know? And so I think that these are limited beliefs that people have, whether they're creative or highly accomplished or high performing people.

And I think that that clutter becomes a way that it hides or shows up, like you said, as a symptom in their life.

Andrew Mellen: 1:01:55

Yes.

Melanie Warner: 1:01:56

So you mentioned in your own life you stopped performing not not just on stage, but in life. You know, what did that performance look like? Where did you feel like you had to put on this mask and be something you weren't?

Andrew Mellen: 1:02:09

I like to think that I did not perform a lot when I was off stage. In fact, I didn't hang out with a lot of actors when I was working in the theater, you know? And my journey was I started as an actor, and then I became a director and then a writer and a producer, and then an administrator. So but I think even when I was an actor, I was more interested in hanging out with visual artists, writers, musicians and dancers. I was interested in other expressions.

I didn't necessarily want to be around other. I'm an introvert, and those highly extroverted performers made me uncomfortable because I didn't want to be on. When I wasn't off stage. When I was off stage, I remember also seeing many, many years ago, a production of it was heartbreak House at the Guthrie Theater. And I want to say his name was Philip Warlow was performing.

The character's name was Hector Hushabye. Very like, very dramatic, like a swashbuckler in this George Bernard Shaw play. And and then there was a talkback afterwards, and he came out and he was this mousy little British man, very quiet, very introverted. And it was such a clear demonstration that you could be quite big and expressive on stage. You don't have to live like that in the world.

And that it gave me permission, right? Like, because I, I'm not a like, I'm not a musical theater performer. I don't, I don't, I don't look for opportunities to sing and perform in my private life. I mean, I do sing in the shower, but it's not, I'm not a performer in my private life. I, I was always really reserved for the stage.

And so for me, one of the ways that I suppose I took care of myself was to not put myself in environments with people that were rather performative, because it would make me feel uncomfortable to. because I didn't want to have to do that. It's I'm not naturally wired that way. Being with other, more reflective people, you know, painters, writers, for the most part, those are pretty solitary art forms. And people tend to be quiet.

They might be listening to music when they're doing it, but they tend to be more quiet. And those pursuits have always appealed to me. You know, I mean, while I consider myself on some level to be a reluctant writer, it's a lot of quiet, alone time. I also, once I get into that zone, I really actually enjoy being there. I like words and I like the ability to use words to capture something precise.

Melanie Warner: 1:05:12

You also had a unique ability to help uncover what you want. You would ask yourself, how much do I want to do this? And that sounds simple, but most people never ask that. They just kind of think, okay, I'm taking this forward momentum, so I must want to do this. So I got to follow through and I got to finish it.

Right. So why do most people never ask themselves that question?

Andrew Mellen: 1:05:36

I would think that they might have gotten some messaging at some point that what they wanted was not important. What other people wanted was more important, that they should want what other people want. And I mean, I certainly got some messaging as a child that being self-focused equated with being selfish and selfish, has a negative connotation. We we want to. And on some level, we must care for ourselves so that we are available to care for others.

You know, physician, heal thyself. And at the same time, there's a lot of messaging, probably certainly here in the U.S. from those Puritans who first arrived here that were rather ascetic and self-denying, that that there's a long history of focusing on the self, not in an ego aggrandizing way, but just in a checking in and being focused on oneself and caring for oneself is wrong, is bad, is selfish. And those are those things are to be avoided. So then if we start to dabble in, well, what do I want? What makes me happy?

What makes me feel fulfilled? That starts to feel like we're going someplace where we're vulnerable to other people's judgments. And even if you think about the film. Crazy Rich Asians, right? Michelle Yeoh's character, one of her criticisms of her son's fiance was that she was an American and that the Americans are all about, like, their passions and what makes them happy.

And here in Asia, we understand that we build things that last. And personal personal pleasure and personal desires are should be sublimated in service of something else. Right? And yet at the same time, she was she was an outsider to her mother in law. And she was she never measured up.

And yet she was perpetuating the same thing or perpetrating the same thing towards her potential future daughter in law. That same sense of being caught betwixt and in between. And and I think, again, the those gray places are uncomfortable, are uncomfortable for people to sit.

Melanie Warner: 1:08:25

Like self love, self awareness is not selfish. And I think for women, especially because we tend to put others ahead of us and we, you know, we take care of our families and then, you know, like, I'm, I'm in the senior sandwich, you know, like my son's a senior, my parents are seniors. I'm like right in the middle. And so it's a confusing time as well for me to, you know, to have kids that are grown and flown, but then worrying about how my parents are doing, you know, and so I can see how there's few people, there's people who get lost in that, just taking care of everybody else. And then they feel selfish focusing on themselves.

Melanie Warner: 1:09:05

Yeah.

Andrew Mellen: 1:09:05

And I see it in the programs that I run all the time, particularly. I mean, the, the people in my programs are probably 90% female, and they would think nothing of investing ten times what they invest to come do some of our programs for their kids or their partners, or even maybe even for like a handbag or an appliance. And yet the thought of investing in their in themselves feels selfish. Like they're, they're taking it away from somebody else to give it to themselves. And how can I do that?

I, you know, and what happens is the thing that just came to me and that that is the argument is how can I justify it as if it needs to be justified? One of the things we talk about all the time is how often the word but or because is in a sentence because those are Indicators of a justification or rationalization. I was late because blah blah blah. Well, you were late because you were late.

Melanie Warner: 1:10:24

But I think there's also there's the stigma and a little bit of a judgment or shame for women. I would think around this subject because I know for, you know, if you're in a traditional marriage where you have, you know, a husband that works, and then the wife that's at home, that as women, we're expected to be good, you know, home caregivers and home take, you know, take care of homes. And so if we can't stay organized and our homes aren't clean and decluttered, that there's something wrong with us.

Melanie Warner: 1:10:53

Right. Right.

Melanie Warner: 1:10:54

And that, and that it's like, it's almost like an admission, like you wouldn't want to go to your partner and say, hey, I need money to help declutter the house in their mind. Why can't why aren't you?

Melanie Warner: 1:11:03

It's your job. Like how.

Andrew Mellen: 1:11:05

How do you not.

Melanie Warner: 1:11:05

Know how to do your job?

Melanie Warner: 1:11:07

Sit around, watch soap operas and eat bonbons. I hear that all the time. And like, so there's a lot of women that beat themselves up and feel shame about it. And now you've got two income families where you've got men and women, you know, or couples or partners, two income partnerships working outside the home. And then there's no at home contract about who's going to take care of all the stuff that's accumulating.

One of the things that in our household, when my kids said, I want something new, we would make them go through and clean out their closet. They wanted new shoes. They had to donate some other shoes or give them away or sell them or do something, you know? And it just, it made it more sustainable because they had to realize that there's only so much capacity to just like you can only eat so much before you feel sick. You can only put so much in your body.

And your body has to process that before you can consume more. So your home and your space and your office only has the capacity for so much stuff to be stored there or serve a functional purpose there. So if you want something new, it means you have to get rid of something or repurpose the thing that's in that space.

Melanie Warner: 1:12:20

And I think that was helpful to realize that there it wasn't unlimited, right? There's a certain capacity of where and how things function. So Andrew, what's the relationship between boundaries and freedom?

Andrew Mellen: 1:12:36

Healthy, appropriate boundaries facilitate freedom. When things are clearly defined. Everything outside or inside those boundaries are is available when the boundary shifts, when it's a moving target, it's inconsistent, which again is different than at a revised boundary is different than a an undefined boundary. If you. If you can't feel comfortable or confident with the definition of the boundary, then you're always off balance.

And it's hard to feel grounded and safe and and centered. If you know what the boundary is, then you know where you go and where you don't go. What's available and what isn't available. So it sets you free. You're not in your head wondering.

What's really going on here. I would always prefer things to be explicit and again, as precise as possible, rather than guessing or trying to interpret what somebody means. I would much rather things be stated clearly and plainly.

Melanie Warner: 1:13:59

How do people stop saying yes by default? Because I've heard people say, when you say yes to yourself or you say no to someone else, you're saying yes to yourself. So if somebody out there is listening to this and they're a people pleaser, or they're the person that just says yes enthusiastically and figures it out, say yes and figure it out. Kind of people. How do people stop saying yes by default?

Andrew Mellen: 1:14:20

Yeah. The simplest thing that you can do is build the behavior of saying, wow, that sounds amazing. I'd like 24 hours to consider that, and then I'll get back with you so that you don't raise your hand reflexively and volunteer before you've had a chance to consider it. And to your point, then we go back and look at our schedule and say, if I bring this in, what am I going to let go of? If I'm already at capacity or near capacity, I can't take this on without letting something go.

AM I ready to let something go? Or are the things that I'm already committed to all better? Whatever better is is better more valuable to me than this thing, as interesting or as sexy as it is. So being able to. The the best thing one can do is say, sounds great.

I'll get back to you in 24 hours with my answer. And, and in the same way that saying no is a complete sentence, you don't need to say no because or no, but you could just say no or no. Thank you.

Melanie Warner: 1:15:30

So giving that buffer of, you know, because I know I have to make a million decisions a day. So I'm just usually like making decisions. I couldn't put off every decision for 24 hours, but yet I find myself impulsively saying yes to things when I'm in the moment versus stopping and slowing down to think about things and how it affects everything. So I can see how that could be helpful.

Andrew Mellen: 1:15:54

Well, and there's a big difference between do I want a turkey sandwich or a cheese sandwich for lunch? And do I want to take on a project that is potentially 200 hours over the next three months. And I don't know how I'm going to slot that into my calendar. And, and, and acknowledging that the alternative is if you've got a story that says, well, I'm a can do kind of person. That's a story, right?

You don't need to lean into that of, of, well, I'll just suck it up and make it work. If it's super important to you, maybe there's an opportunity for you to evaluate the other things that you're committed to and say in the light of this, maybe this is less important or less significant, and I could let this go now. I don't need, I don't need to, to keep them both as priorities. I can bring this one in and release that one.

Melanie Warner: 1:16:52

I would say the real problem is, you know, where, where people are organizing around instead of confronting. Would you agree with that?

Melanie Warner: 1:17:03

Do you think the real problem is, is like that, that people are actually organizing around doing things instead of confronting things as far as why they end up with so many unplanned, like so much clutter in their life because they're, they're busy, their busyness of organizing versus versus confronting those feelings of letting these things go.

Andrew Mellen: 1:17:25

I think that's certainly a piece of it. I, I, I'm only taking exception at the as if there's one.

Right. It's certainly a factor. And for some people, it might be a rather large factor that. There is also a distinction between organizing and decluttering. Let's talk about the organizational triangle for a second.

One home for everything. Like with like and something in something out. One home for everything means everything has one home. Only one home. Like with like means all like objects live together, not most of them.

So we don't keep most of the tools in the toolbox in the garage, but we keep the Phillips head screwdriver in the junk drawer in the kitchen, because we've got a story that says the knobs are always a little loose on these cabinets. I don't want to go all the way out to the garage to get the screwdriver. This is actually good time management, but it's not because your first impulse is going to be to go to the toolbox to find that screwdriver. When you don't find it, you might go buy another one. And then three weeks later, when you're digging around in the junk drawer, you're going to find that first Phillips head screwdriver, and your first thought is going to be, who's the idiot who left it here?

Your second thought is going to be one of your 200 lies. The average adult tells 200 lies a day, and that will be oh, that was this was my great idea of and this is a good time management hack. And the second, the third thought that you have will be the second one of your 200 lies, which is. Now that I remember it, I'll never forget it again. And you will.

So one home for everything and like with like will get you organized when everything has one home and all of its siblings are together, you actually are organized. Now, what you might discover is when you bring all of your sweaters together, that you have 47 cashmere V-neck sweaters that you. You have too many sweaters for the space where you're going to put your sweaters. At that point, you would begin the process of decluttering. But organizing.

You actually are organized. Everything has a home, and all of its siblings are together. The third leg of the organizational triangle. Something in, something out. You've already talked about living that with your kids and your family.

And it doesn't it's not about scarcity or deprivation. It just means because there are no rules about what enough is. If you live in a 10,000 square foot house and you have 1000 square foot walk in closet and you have enough cubbies for 150 pairs of shoes, you can have 150 pairs of shoes. There's no rule that says every adult is only allowed to have 32 pairs of shoes, or seven sweaters, or nine scarves, or two pairs of gloves. You can have as much as the space can contain.

So if 150 pairs of shoes is enough, and you've determined that's as many copies as I want to build and. And with 150 pairs of shoes, I'll have enough shoes for any outfit and any feeling I have and any color and any look. It just means that when you buy the 151st pair, it must be because you're ready to retire one of the first 150 pairs of shoes.

Melanie Warner: 1:20:26

I think for me it was I bought a house and it was a huge house and I was I felt it felt empty. So I started buying stuff to fill it. And then when I got divorced and I, you know, like I went from 13,000ft² to 1300 and I didn't want to let go of all that. So I'm like, I was holding on to all these things that had sentimental value or associations to them. And it was really difficult to go through all of that stuff and see what to pare down.

So a lot of it ended up in storage or the garage because I just didn't want to part with it.

Andrew Mellen: 1:21:00

Those are just deferred decisions. That's exactly what clutter is. Clutter is a deferred decision. It's a decision you didn't want to make in real time. You set it aside.

You told yourself one of your 200 lies. I'll deal with that later, thinking that later is actually going to arrive. But we're just in a consistent rotation of now. Later. Never gets here tomorrow and tomorrow is not promised.

Right? We we hope we wake up tomorrow, but there's no guarantee that tomorrow will happen. And later is never really here. It's just a series of now followed by now, followed by now, followed by now.

Melanie Warner: 1:21:36

What's one thing that listeners already know they need to let go of but haven't admitted yet?

Andrew Mellen: 1:21:42

Well, I'll say that the things that people struggle the most with are sentimental objects. Because of the stories, they often feel like letting the object go means they're letting the person go, or that the person no longer has value, which is not true. Your dad is not the clock. Your grandmother's not the teacup. Your kids are not the Star Wars posters.

Right. So we we need to be able to separate story from object. Sentimental objects are one of those places paper freaks people out because they don't often paper is tied to money and people don't want to make a money mistake. So they'll hold on to everything because, well, if I let that go, what if I need that later? I don't want to have to.

I don't want to have to call the cops, you know, the secretary of state or I don't want to have to call the insurance company or somebody to try to get that piece of paper back. I already have it. So paper is a place that people get stuck. Electronics, particularly if you're not very comfortable with machines. Machines are another place that people get tripped up because they think, well, I don't know what this cord goes to, but it might go to something that I own, so I don't want to let it go in case I need it.

And I find the I find the thing that it goes to later or I'm done with this device and I'm now using this device. But I still left things on the old device, and I don't want to take the time now to harvest them, but I don't want to let this go until I get, you know, the, the financial records or the photographs or the music off of it. Once I do that, I'll totally let it go. Is one of the two underlies. The thing specifically about machines are it's always a question of when technology will fail, not if technology will fail or.

Melanie Warner: 1:23:34

Mine is always, I don't know the password. I don't remember how to get into the drive, you know, and the stuff is just collecting dust. And, you know, it's easy to get caught up in. There's just so many things. I remember at one point I, I had over a million pieces of paper in my garage when I went through my divorce, I was going through tax audits and then tax court, and I was terrified of throwing anything away because I think with government documents, especially, people need to remember that they need to keep the originals of government documents.

And, and I know, and one thing that may be helpful to some people listening is in the state of California, there is no statutes of limitations. That's a that's a myth. So if you have paperwork like tax returns, supporting documents, even receipts, like a lot of times they'll go back. I, I had the franchise tax board came back almost 20 years and said, you owe us money from 2007. And I was like, what?

And my CPA was like, I don't have those records beyond ten years. So those are the kinds of things where I think that those entities, people need to know that there's certain things you do have to store long term and have a space and a plan for that.

Andrew Mellen: 1:24:42

Sure. Of course. Another place that people get tripped up is around clothing, particularly if you tend to go up or down in size. People often get stuck and the. The best practice around that is really. If you're more than 2 or 3 sizes away, let the outliers go. If you end up dropping a bunch of weight rapidly, you can reward yourself and go shopping for new clothes.

And likewise, if you're holding on to things that are big because you're afraid you'll wake up £50 heavier tomorrow, that's not going to happen. You're going to have to buy several pairs of like, fat jeans before you get back into, you know, the size 20s or the XXL. You're you've got a journey to get to there. So you're better off. It's not keeping you.

It's not keeping the weight off to keep the moo moo or the caftan in the back of your closet just in case. So that's another place that people get tricked up.

Melanie Warner: 1:25:42

I think people keep the skinny clothes thinking I'm going to lose the weight. And so I don't want to get rid of these clothes and then have. Or. I definitely don't want to buy if I. When I gained weight, I did not want to buy clothes in a bigger size because I didn't want to stay there.

Right. So then I never had everything, nothing ever fit right? Or unless I had really stretchy clothes, like during Covid, where I work every day and didn't realize I gained £20, you know?

Andrew Mellen: 1:26:05

Exactly.

Melanie Warner: 1:26:06

I think so if you're if if you're, if you're sitting at home and you're listening to this and you recognize, you say, hey, I this sounds like me, right? Like you're in that space of like, in between trying to figure out where to do what to do with things that you've got uncertainty. You're just feeling like, you know, you need to clean things up. Like if someone's listening, what's the most critical first step they need to do,

Andrew. To kind of start.

Because if you go in my garage, it's overwhelming. No one wants to go walk. I can't even put a car in there. It's too much stuff. So I try to go in there and I just feel so shut down and overwhelmed and anxious, and I could spend a week in there and it doesn't look like I did anything.

I don't feel like I'm making any progress. So where where do you recommend people start when they just feel so overwhelmed with this stuff?

Andrew Mellen: 1:26:57

There's two things to think about when you are in that place. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. So Newton's second law of entropy. And the other thing that I made up, which is failure breeds failure.

Success breeds success. So if you're feeling strong, you can go into the garage and start to whittle away at things. And if you're feeling a little puny and tentative and overwhelmed, you can go for low hanging fruit, which is empty the dishwasher, take out the recycling, do a load of laundry, fold a load of laundry, put it away. We just want to get you into movement so that again, a body at rest will stay at rest. A body in motion will stay mentioned.

Melanie Warner: 1:27:41

But do you organize things a specific way? Like for example, I tend to. my brain thinks in a very linear way. So I tend to want to take things and start organizing them, you know, in different piles. But then I never got it. So the thing to do, you just throw stuff away and then or do you just say all this I want to keep and then just put everything you want to keep in one big bin and then figure out how to organize it?

Andrew Mellen: 1:28:03

No, I think the simplest way to start the process is always sorting like with like, because try other than again, low hanging fruit, if you are going through, let's just talk about your garage. I haven't seen your garage, but I've seen garages. So let's say in your garage, you've got a bunch of different kinds of things that you've been storing there. As you come across individual items, it's very hard to make a decision about what will stay or what will go as a one off decision. Now there are outliers you might come across.

Let's say one of your kids played hockey and there's a broken hockey stick in the garage. It's relatively easy to look at that and think, nobody's going to tape it back together. It's garbage. I'm going to put it in the garbage bin. That's what I consider to be low hanging fruit, right?

You, you, you come across one smashed shoe and you know that the other shoe doesn't exist because you remember when you threw it away and you're like, oh, here's the mate that I remember. I threw it sister away. This is now garbage. So I can let this go. Or a broken piece of glass or crockery, things that are clearly damaged and garbage.

We can't recycle or repurpose them any longer. They're trash. Those are easy to to scoop up and put in the garbage. Everything else becomes easier to decide what stays and goes when you're comparing like with like with each other. So as I said, if when you pull all your v neck sweaters together, it becomes easier to decide, okay, well, this is a sweater that has a hole in the elbow.

This sweater is the one where I snagged the pocket and it ripped a little bit. This is the one where the waistband is blown out and I don't wear these. These are not my greatest hits. There's a statistic that says we wear 20% of our wardrobe 80% of the time. So basically we're in our greatest hits.

So as a one off, you would look at the sweater that has the hole in the elbow and you'd go, oh, but I love that black cashmere sweater. I looked so good in it. I don't want to let it go. And if I put a jacket over it, if I put a blouse over it, I can hide the hole in it. Yes you can, but when you compare it with the other black cashmere sweaters, it becomes easier to let it go because you know, you still have.

Oh, I still have three that I actually still look good in that don't need a workaround for me to wear them. So sorting like with like is the easiest way to begin the process because you don't have to make any decisions other than what is this like? You're not deciding stay or go.

Melanie Warner: 1:30:48

If you say like with like, are you saying, okay, if you're going to keep these sweaters, then you put the black sweaters together and.

Andrew Mellen: 1:30:55

Beginning is, yeah, the beginning is just sweater with sweater. And then you can drill down into sweaters like black sweaters with black sweaters, purple sweaters with purple sweaters, green sweaters with green sweaters. And then you can even go further to say, you know, green cardigans with green cardigans and purple V necks with purple V necks and black turtlenecks with black mock turtlenecks. But the beginning is the is the most global category sweaters with sweaters, jeans with jeans, shoes with shoes, tools with tools. Once you get all the tools together, then you can say, okay, the wrenches are going to go in this part of the toolbox.

The screwdrivers will go here, the hammers will go here, the drill bits will go there, but in the very beginning it's just the lowest common denominator.

Andrew Mellen: 1:31:44

Find a tool. Put it with the other tools. Find a piece of paper. Put it with the other pieces of paper. If it's easy while you're doing it to say this is a credit card statement, I will put it with other credit card

statements.

This is an explanation of benefits from the insurance company. I will put it with other eobs with other explanations of benefits. You can do that if you have the room. The the quickest thing to do is just paper with paper, and then there'll be another pass through it to break it apart into its subcategories.

Melanie Warner: 1:32:15

Yeah. Because I think that's where I got stuck. I remember watching years ago, you know, Marie Kondo and I got, you know, I, I, I Kondo is my whole house, right? Like with a that organized folding origami, the underwear, origami, like it was like insane. And I, the way I folded the towels and it drove everybody crazy in my house, but I felt like I was making progress.

But then it was like her thing was touch every single thing. And if it sparks joy, keep it. If not, let it go. And I'm like, my paperwork, my divorce paperwork does not bring me joy, but I can't let it go. You know, I cannot get rid of it. And my toilet brush does not spark joy. And I'm and I'm going to keep it to the right. Like if the choice is rubber gloves and a sponge or a toilet brush, I'm keeping the toilet brush.

Andrew Mellen: 1:32:59

Is it the most beautiful toilet brush in the world? No, I think I got it at home goods for $10. It's perfectly fine. It's attractive. It sits in the corner of the bathroom.

It's staying.

Melanie Warner: 1:33:12

Andrew, is there anything else you want to share with our viewers before we wrap up today? I know that you've have we've talked about a lot of things. Is the emotional side behind the separation and decisions, which I think is not something people talk about the functionality of, oh, how you organize and make things look good. And they can see TikTok videos about that. But I think this is the psychological part that most people don't talk about. So when somebody's going to work with you as a client, do you am I understanding this properly that you sit down and, and go through this kind of process of the emotional separation before they start decluttering? Like, what is your process of working?

Andrew Mellen: 1:33:49

Oh, well, when I'm working with private clients, whether they're corporate clients or, you know, people in their homes, I typically I ask them where they think the problem is, and then I ask them to give me a tour of the space so that I get to observe where I recognize friction bottlenecks, speed bumps. And I'm observing all of this while I'm also listening to the conversation. And not unlike doctors. You go to the doctor because you have a lump on your arm and you think like, oh, I want this removed. And then the doctor tells you, well, that's actually because you're having an autoimmune reaction to something that you're allergic to, and the bump will go away.

Actually, when we when we remove dairy from your diet or something, it's. So I'm, I'm observing what you present as the symptoms. And at the same time, I'm looking to see how does how does the, the facility function and where are the, where are those points of friction and, and if there's something in particular on your mind that you will begin to unpack that for me so I can more accurately diagnose what's going on.

Andrew Mellen: 1:35:06

I don't go in with a it's I don't have a cookie cutter process. I mean, I've been doing this work for 30 years, so I don't have a cookie cutter process that everybody has to adhere to. I'm present for what is the problem that we're trying to solve here? Sometimes people will say paperwork is making me crazy. And what I'll recognize is that the office is a mess.

But that actually isn't the biggest problem that the fact that there's no standard operating procedures, there's no structure supersedes, what are we going to do with the papers if we don't even have a procedure for how we're going to handle new paper coming in? So I show up, I listen, I look and I observe, and then I diagnose. And from there I make my recommendations. And when we're doing the work, it's there have been plenty of times where we start someplace and something comes up and it's either too tender or it's too large for the moment, and we have to set it down and pivot to someplace else. The the benefit of working with me or with people like me is there's always something else that can be done.

If, if you have to stop doing something, it doesn't mean that you have to stop doing everything you can pivot to something else and then circle back around it. If it's too tender or too intense or you don't, the alternative isn't no action. It's just different action.

Melanie Warner: 1:36:46

So do you. So I'm assuming you work with people in person, or can you also do stuff like online or on Zoom?

Andrew Mellen: 1:36:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Melanie Warner: 1:36:52

I walk through.

Andrew Mellen: 1:36:54

Yeah, I've done virtual work with private clients literally all over the world. And I've also, I mean, I've also been flown all over the world to go work privately with clients. So I mean, I can do either or. I mean, partly that's a, you know, that's a budget and a time thing. And but yeah, I mean, ultimately, as long as I can see what's going on, I'm perfectly capable of directing traffic via FaceTime or Skype as well as being physically on site.

Melanie Warner: 1:37:25

And so if somebody wants to work with you, what's the next step? Or how can they get in touch with you? How can they follow you if they want to?

Andrew Mellen: 1:37:33

Well, I mean, following is, you know, there's Facebook, there's Instagram, there's TikTok, there's my YouTube channel, all of those places. If you look for Andrew Mellon, MELLEN, you will find me on all of those platforms. I mean, I think there's 100,000 people on Instagram and, you know, there's 2000 people on YouTube and TikTok and all those places. So I have some visibility, all of those on all of those platforms. If somebody wanted to reach out to me because they wanted me to speak at a conference, or they wanted to hire me to do some consulting work, the best thing to do is send an email to hello @Andrewmellen.com and that's where my team is. Monitoring that. That is the inbox that's always monitored.

Melanie Warner: 1:38:23

[email protected]. Perfect. All right. Any other Final thoughts that you want to leave us, leave our audience with. And then we're going to in a second, we're going to jump into our mystery guest.

So anything else you want to share, Andrew, before we wrap up.

Andrew Mellen: 1:38:39

I just coming full circle to the idea that. The kindest thing anyone can do for themselves, particularly if it's whether it's physical clutter, emotional clutter, spiritual clutter, it's an obstacle is have some grace and some compassion for yourself. Avoid negative self-talk and shame based conversations or guilt based conversations. Maya Angelou said it so well, right? When we know better, we do better.

So whatever pickle you might be finding yourself in, in this moment doesn't mean that you are a pickle. And that from from wherever you find yourself, whether you have hoarding tendencies, whether you are an overworked and overwhelmed executive, also trying to juggle a home life, whatever the circumstances are, there is always movement forward. And literally, I'm going to get a little choked up, right? Literally every journey begins with one step and everybody can take one more step.

Melanie Warner: 1:39:53

Yeah. I often hear, and I heard something that just horrified me. Years. Years ago, I remember hearing this stat, and I don't know if it's changed, but it was something like the average person spends 3.6 years of their life looking for lost items.

Andrew Mellen: 1:40:08

It used to be a year.

Andrew Mellen: 1:40:09

It might be now 3.6.

Andrew Mellen: 1:40:11

Which is even more overwhelming.

Melanie Warner: 1:40:13

It's overwhelming to think about that and like, what a waste of life looking for lost objects if you can just

be organized. And I remember growing up, there was this TV show called Hazel, and she used to say, there's a place for everything, and everything has its place. And like, that's always in the back of my head. And like, when I went from a big house, I had to bring somebody in to literally, I was overwhelmed because I had like four medicine cabinets and like three pantries. I'm like, where do I put the Band-Aids in this house?

You know what I mean? And it was just like so excessive and I needed so much stuff. And then when I downsized after my divorce by 90%, I had to get rid of all that stuff and didn't want anything to go to waste. Because I don't like waste. I don't like to waste time or money or resources, and I donate a lot to nonprofits and things too.

So I think that's the thing is that there are things that have sentimental value. I know recently I could cry, but tomorrow's my mother in law's funeral. And she was like my other mom for 32 years. And her when she had to go to a senior care place, her house was full of memories and it was hard for her. You know, my ex husband and his sister and the our kids, you know, to figure out what they wanted.

So I put stuff in storage thinking it would be there for a month, and it was there for a year and a half. And like just last month, we literally drove to LA and, you know, 300 miles to bring this table to my daughter in Burbank. And she was so grateful her and her fiance and they were so excited to have this older table that was both functional and sentimental. And I'm so glad I kept that stuff, right? Like, and that's the thing, I think now that she's passed away, I have other furniture that my son wants to have.

And so it's like in my mind, I knew when she was cleaning out the house, they're like, yeah, we don't want any of that. And then I, I in the back of my mind, I had a feeling they might want these things at some point. So I justified paying thousands of dollars in storage fees, and I'm glad I did. And that there were some things I did save from when they were a kid that now that they're adults, and especially when they think about having their own kids that they wish that they would have saved, right? So it's so hard to know what to save for other people.

And so I finally went to them and said, if you don't want this stuff, I'll get rid of it. But if you do, I will save it and help you find a space for it. And that, that set me free of thinking. I had to save things that I thought would be sentimental to them that weren't right. So I appreciate you so much.

Oh my gosh, I, I, I know you're going to be coming out to see me in a little bit and I, I'm so tempted to have you come here and help me with this. And so thank you, Andrew, for just your genius and so grateful that you had your own defining moment and how I think of the last 30 years and how many people you have helped them get their sanity back in their space and their peace back and, and, and some certainty in their lives. So I'm so grateful for you and all that you do. Thank you so much for, for taking that time and for your heart and, and wanting to serve people in that way.

Melanie Warner: 1:43:23

Wow.

Melanie Warner: 1:43:23

And thank you again for being here. And I want to shift for one second before we wrap up to our mystery guests, because I was like sharing a defining moment, somebody you probably already know, this person, you know their name for sure, but you may not know the story behind this. So before he became one of the most influential spiritual teachers in the world, before his book sold millions of copies, before people traveled across the world to hear him speak, before he was on Oprah, he wanted to disappear. At 29 years old, he was living in England, deeply depressed, not sad, but empty. He had crippling anxiety, constant fear, an endless stream of thoughts that he described it as attacking him from the inside.

He later decided it was like living with this relentless enemy in his own mind. Every day felt like a burden. It was hard to get up. It was heavy. Every interaction felt draining because he wanted it to be meaningful.

Every moment was consumed by overthinking, and one night it all became so unbearable that he sat alone in his apartment, overwhelmed by despair. And he had a thought that terrified him. I can't live like this. I can't live with myself any longer. And he planned to take his own life.

And then something strange happened. The first time, instead of collapsing into the thought, instead of just overthinking it, he started questioning that thought. If I cannot live with myself, then who is the I that I can't live with? And who is the self? And that question cracks something open, because suddenly he realized there were two versions of himself the awareness and the suffering, the observer and the

chaos.

And in that moment, the identity that he had built around fear, anxiety and mental noise began to dissolve, not all at once, but enough to create space and peace for something new to come. The next morning, he woke up. He walked the streets of London in a completely different state. Quiet. Still present.

Intentional. And over the following months, people noticed something strange about him. He would sit for hours on park benches, not reading, not working, not doing anything, not trying or striving to become something. Just sitting. Watching the light through the trees, feeling the air on his face.

Feeling the grass underneath his toes existing without the constant pressure to do something. He literally became a human being, not a human doing. And people seriously thought something was wrong with him because he would just be sitting on the bench staring off into space, and for the first time in his life, he felt free because he had stopped identifying with the voice in his head that was mostly negative, and he had stopped believing that every thought deserved control over his life because he was a meaningful, thoughtful person. And years later, that transformation became one of the most well loved books in the world called The Power of Now, a message that would reach millions of people drowning in the exact same thing mental noise, pressure, endless striving, the belief that peace comes later. But his defining moment wasn't becoming a teacher of this.

It was realizing he didn't need to become anyone else to be free. It was already in him. He just needed to stop clinging to the version of himself and that story that he was suffering and realize the power of now, and simply being present as a solution to mental health. And that is the defining moment of Eckhart Tolle. So I love that story because that power of now that that power of being present.

You know, when I first read that book, I heard about him on Oprah. And I remember realizing in that time when I was going through all this chaos in my life and loss and grief and uncertainty and losing things, being able to be present in that space. Something as simple as putting a live plant, going out with nature, he said. You connect with something that's alive, whether it's a person, a plant, an animal, something that reminds you that you're here and now, and that power of presence of now. And what's so powerful about that story, Andrew, is nothing externally changed at first.

The breakthrough happened when he stopped identifying with the chaos. And when you think about busyness being an addiction, how much of that is people trying to outrun themselves? right? And how much of what people call overwhelm is actually identity? What's the one thing someone out there listening needs to let go of today?

What is the one thing? And you know, deep inside your soul is going to shout it out at you. Listen to that inner voice, get quiet, be present. And those answers will become clear and self-evident. And if somebody feels buried under obligations, noise, and pressure, this is the first small decision that can begin to make you feel free.

So thank you so much, you guys, for being here. I want you to to leave with this thinking. What is your life costing you because you refuse to let it go? Whether it's stuff or whether it's a person or a relationship, a job that's no longer serving you. And be grateful for these defining moments that sometimes they are a pebble on the on your window, and sometimes you get hit by on the head by a two by four and it feels like, oh my gosh, I needed I was just not paying attention before we finally realized this was something that was a wake up call.

And we've all been there. So we can be grateful for those defining moments where we have a choice to become bitter or better. And the world is always better when we choose better.

Melanie Warner: 1:49:34

So thank you for joining us today. And thank you, Andrew, for all of you. Also for listening, make sure you click on the links below in the show notes if you want any continued support after this call. And by all means, get in touch with Andrew. If you have questions about your own clutter and just need to be in that better space.

So thank you again so much and we'll see you guys next time. Take care everyone. Good luck with your defining moments as well.

Outro: 1:50:00

Thanks for listening to the Defining Moments podcast. We'll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.