http://www.theminimalists.com/

About Joshua Fields Millburn

Born in 1981, I came into this world at the tail end of Generation X. I recently turned 30. I used to lead a large group of people in the corporate world, but I left my six-figure job to pursue my passions. Now I’m a full-time writer. I’ve written two bestselling non-fiction books with Ryan Nicodemus: Minimalism: Essential Essays and Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. My first book of fiction, Falling While Sitting Down: Stories, recently reached #1 on Amazon’s Bestselling Short Stories list. And my first novel, As a Decade Fades, will be published in 2012. I also write essays with Ryan Nicodemus about minimalism and living a meaningful life with less stuff on this site. I think own less than 288 things (but I don’t actually count my stuff). I live in Dayton, Ohio. You can laugh at more photos of me here and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Read more about me on my personal fiction site.

Ryan’s Comments About Joshua

I’ve known Josh since the fifth grade. I’m younger by six months (note from Joshua: actually it’s less than four months, but who’s counting?), and as long as I’ve known him I’ve been the more attractive one (another note from Joshua: sadly, this is true). Even though I’m the one that’s always gotten the hotter girl (Joshua: this is not true though), we’ve managed to stay friends. I’m happy that Josh is my friend. Together, we have an ability to make anything happen when we put our minds to it. We bring out each other’s strengths, and we keep each other motivated. My favorite memory of Josh is the first time I saw him eat an entire 10 pack of White Castles at age 10 (Joshua: I don’t remember this, but I’ll take your word for it. I was a fat kid, after all). Oh, and he had a mullet until he was 12 years old (Joshua: unfortunately I can’t deny this fact, mainly because there are pictures to prove it).

About Ryan Nicodemus

Hi, my name is Ryan and I like sandwiches (among other things). I was born in 1981 in Knoxville, Tennessee. My family moved around a lot when I was young, but we eventually ended up in Ohio (by way of upstate New York) when I was eight. Three states in eight years. I could go on, but you probably don’t care. I have a ton of hobbies, like volleyball, snowboarding, wake boarding, etc. Professionally, I had it made in the corporate world. I was living “the corporate dream” until I was laid off unexpectedly. But that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Now I’m living a meaningful life with less stuff and pursuing my passions. I’ve written two non-fiction books with Joshua Fields Millburn: Minimalism: Essential Essays and Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life. If you like interesting/funny updates, follow me on Twitter and Google+.

Joshua’s Comments About Ryan

I’m fairly certain Ryan will not approve of any of the follow “facts” about his life. Ryan is the same age as me, although he was born a few months after I was (he looks much older than me though). We have nearly identical thought processes, but we are almost completely different people: I’m a bit OCD, Ryan is a bit ADD; I’m an introvert who loves time alone, Ryan is an extrovert who loves to be around people; I’m 6’2″, and Ryan is … well, he’s less than six-feet tall. We have a lot of similarities though: we both had difficult childhoods, we both know how to effectively lead people and successfully run a business, we are both tremendously passionate people. This will sound sentimental, but Ryan is the best person I know. He is habitually honest, caring, loving, and passionate. Oh, and he likes turtles and Wendy’s coffee and watching the evening news. I’m extremely grateful we’re friends.

Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life is our finest, most important creation to date. It’s also the best thing we’ve ever written about Minimalism and will likely serve as the cornerstone to our work for years to come. It took us a year to write this book—a year of creating the best material possible and finding ways to relate it back to our lives so you would have practical ways to relate the subject matter to your life.

Chapter Themes:

Do you jump out of bed every morning excited about the day in front of you? Do you live a life defined by deep meaning, endless passion, excellent health, empowering relationships, and constant growth?

You can.

Ultimately, the eight chapters and ninety-eight sections inside this book are meant to help you take small actions each day that will radically improve your life over a short period of time.

This book’s foreword and first chapter go into vast detail on our personal backgrounds, our troubled pasts, our depression, and how we made changes that transformed our lives over two years. These chapters discuss why didn’t feel fulfilled by our careers and why we turned to our society’s idea of a meaningful life: we bought stuff, we spent too much money, and we lived paycheck to paycheck trying to purchase happiness in every trip to the shopping mall or luxurious vacation we could find. Instead of finding our passion, instead of searching for our mission, we pacified ourselves with ephemeral indulgences, inducing a crack-cocaine high that didn’t last far past the checkout line.

The subsequent chapters move on the the five dimensions that comprise a meaningful life:

1. Health

2. Relationships

3. Passions

4. Growth

5. Contribution

These are the things we changed in our lives that had the most impact. These changes resulted in more meaningful lives for the two of us. These five chapters discuss each of these concepts in depth, much more than our website. Throughout these chapters we consider why these areas are the most important dimensions of our lives and how minimalism allowed us to focus on these areas. We give you personal examples of how we changed everything in our lives over two year span. We left our big corporate jobs, changed our diets, started exercising regularly, got healthy, strengthened our core relationships, made great new relationships, started pursuing our passions, contributed to more people than we ever had, and found ways to be happy and content with our lives.

The final chapter of this book, "The Confluence of Meaning," binds together the five dimensions and asks the reader important questions about their life. These questions are not rhetorical, they are meant to make you think. The entire book is designed to help you actively engage in each chapter by reading the content more than once, taking notes, highlighting meaningful passages, making lists, and, most importantly, taking action.