Simplifying

Welcome.

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Today's episode is something I struggle with immensely and it is simplifying.

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I don't know about you, Kat, but I have a tendency to overcomplicate everything.

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Yup.

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Yeah, really me.

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It's shocking.

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Yeah, I could see that.

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I could see that for sure.

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Thanks, I appreciate the endorsement on that.

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Good to know it's not in my head.

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I think when it comes to simplifying, the big challenge is that need to do more for me.

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It sounds silly, but when I'm done a puzzle, I don't go looking for more pieces to put

into the puzzle, But to me, it's a balance of enough versus just feeling like...

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It can be left alone.

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I don't you know, like I got pins in the back here There's three different colors.

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I don't need to go by 15 other pin colors that represent these other things Yeah, but like

there's just this need

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the pins on his map art that's behind him.

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If you watch our YouTube video, you can see our backgrounds.

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So, Andrew has three different color pins, places that, what is it?

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So it's places that I want to go, those are black I've decided.

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And places that are white, which I've been to once, and red are the places I've been to

multiple times.

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That's cool.

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Yeah, so not super complicated yet, but it could be, know, cause you could do like places

you've been with your kids, places you've been with me, all these different things, but

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three colors is good.

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I could do like one for places I've dreamt about, you know, but there's just the struggle

for me with this.

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And I really want your feedback on this because Lord knows I need it, is how do I stop

complicating everything?

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How do you go from this way of being, is, needs to have more details.

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It needs to be this, it needs to be that, to just going, no, it's good as is.

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because that's really what simplifying to me probably is, isn't it?

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Yeah, I think that as with anything, we have to think about what is the feeling that we're

looking for as an end result, right?

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And sometimes when you over complicate things, you might feel stressed or you might feel

busy.

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You have to think about how you want to feel at the conclusion of the task, right?

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I could give cooking as an example.

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For me, I love like

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I love things to be like straightforward.

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I love consolidating things.

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I love the fact that I downsize into an apartment.

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As far as cooking, I am queen of searching for recipes that literally say five ingredients

or less.

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I don't like like overdoing things.

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Again, we just recorded an episode, the one before this one on finding calm.

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And to me, over complicating things makes things very stressful.

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yeah, that's a good way of framing it.

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Thank you for that.

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I feel that, here comes my awful quote of the day.

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think Einstein or somebody else from old times said like, know, a complicated mind.

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No, I'm not even gonna get the quote right.

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Basically he was saying the more simplified you can get, the smarter you are.

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Yeah.

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And it was basically being able to take like a big concept and distill it down.

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And I love that ability.

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And I'm good with that with other people.

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I mean, if you come to me with a problem, I can look at it and go, no, you're, you know,

this isn't actually this.

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Yeah.

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It's like, you're feeling this way because it's a lack of sleep.

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You're doing this because of this.

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I can, I can see it in everyone else.

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and that's my gift, but doing it to myself and being able to go like, you don't need to

have.

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15 different spices, you only use garlic.

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And, you know, like...

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you need to give yourself a little bit more credit because one thing you're really good at

is you know how to take pleasure in like the simple things of life though.

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Like you don't over complicate your workout routine.

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You don't like over complicate a lot of things.

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Like you know that if you take a nice long walk,

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That's like, you're a very simple form of exercise.

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Like you don't go to the gym and use like 72 different machines.

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And so there are categories in your life that are simple.

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And the one place I will say that can give people a lot of like just a big improvement in

their mental health is if they simplify their finances.

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I mean,

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If you have ever like consolidated debt, you know, taken two or three high interest credit

cards and consolidated them into one payment, you'll know what I mean that there's just,

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feels like cleaning up like rooms in your house.

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it simplifying it.

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And for me, reducing budget categories has been huge.

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was just talking to my daughter about this the other day.

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So I moved into an apartment in June.

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And I came from living in houses, right?

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The last three places I lived were houses.

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And I went from having a water bill, electric bill, internet bill, the guy across the

street I paid to cut my grass and shovel my snow.

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There were so many different things to keep track of.

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There was so much more to clean.

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And I...

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consolidated things, got rid of things, and I moved into an apartment where I only have a

water bill and an internet.

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I mean, I only have an electric bill and an internet bill.

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There's no water bill here.

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There's no heat bill.

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It's included in the rent, right?

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There's no grass to cut.

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There's no snow to shovel.

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I went from all these different budget categories for the house.

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Even to the point where we're recording this at holiday time, there's no yard to decorate

with skeletons or with Christmas trees.

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I mean, all that stuff I gave to my kids' dad so that they could still enjoy having a

yard, you know, with all the fun things in it, which they do enjoy.

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But even that category of like aimlessly going into TJ Maxx or Home Goods and like buying

the cute things.

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I've eliminated that.

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And it has been so freeing for my brain.

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I like do keep a budget.

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I have all these categories.

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I probably slash six or seven categories just from moving to an apartment.

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And it feels so good.

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If you have debt or you're trying to pay down debt sometimes consolidating things like

taking three into one, you know.

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foreign to two, like just getting rid of these line items that you're responsible for

thinking about.

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That's a mental load.

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Simplifying is more than just trying to take steps out of a process.

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It's like a way of living.

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Yeah, you're right.

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It's a and I found that too.

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I mean, I had never lived in an apartment really.

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And moving into this condo, I have two bills.

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have the internet and my condo fee and the condo fee covers like heating, electrical

plumbing, all the snow shoveling, all these things.

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And it was such a mental relief, like to a point where

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I want to fill up that mental time.

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like, you know, I still wake up going, has it snowed or do I have?

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And it's like, no, you don't.

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And the hours of free time it has given me are quite significant and I'm grateful for it.

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It's just really takes a bit of getting that kind of need to be busy mind being okay with

this is good.

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This is good.

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And

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I think you absolutely nailed it.

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It's simplifying is a process and there are areas in your life right now that you're

likely looking at and you're like, it's way too complicated.

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The one that comes to my mind always is kids activities.

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And I think as a society, we have gotten to a point.

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Yeah, well, like I mean, my kids are older right now, so they don't have that many

activities and I'm grateful for that.

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But there was a time where

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you know, when I was married and the kids were doing activities every night, sometimes

multiple times a night, they were wanting to do more things.

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And because it's, you know, that's the age the kids want to, they want to try everything.

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And if you let them, they will, you know, but there becomes that place where you have to

look at it and go and say, no, in my mind, I mean, some parents, I know lots of parents

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that like did everything and nothing wrong with that, but

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I could see it definitely affected my kids' mental being, you know, and as school

progresses and they have homework and, you know, nights with demands and jobs, those

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activities fall away.

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But if they're still wanting to do stuff, you know, teaching your kids the act of

simplifying is really important.

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And we, remember having to do that.

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It's like, do you want to do dance?

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Do you want to do music or do you want to do theater?

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And...

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you have those conversations like, do musical theater because that combines singing,

dancing and theater.

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It's an easy simplification in that sense, but I think we have a need for busyness.

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And one of the biggest things somebody told me, and I really wish I could quote somebody,

but we know that's never gonna be my case, but it was that busyness is a form of laziness.

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it kicked me in the...

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got so badly when I heard that and it was true and I find that when my brain is like

trying to over complicate things I'm going I'm you're being lazy right now you're trying

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to make yourself busier and it's it's a very contradictory thing but I never wanted to be

considered lazy so if you're listening to that and it hits a nerve good it

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100%, but I, but the thought did come to me in the beginning of this episode that packing

things in or overcomplicating things, like if you're at work and you have to give a

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presentation, you're like way overcomplicate it.

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It gives you like the false sense that you're being productive when it could just be

overcomplicating things.

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And you know, our goal is

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to encourage you and to continuously work on ourselves in simplifying things, introducing

calm, being okay with spaces of time to read, to meditate, because there was a time that

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it was very difficult to do those things because you felt like you should be doing

something else that's productive that could be, you know, earning you money or doing

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something or leading to somewhere else.

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It is a.

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challenge in today's world to even give yourself the tiniest slice of the simple life.

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You have to like go and grab it and hang on to it because it's not readily available or

celebrated in our society.

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I agree, I think it's not celebrated.

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I think it should be.

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Like there is something to say.

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I mean, it's the people you're around and that's why you and I have actively said like,

okay, what, like we use the Pareto principle, which is the 80-20 rule of like, know, 20 %

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of the things you do get you 80 % of the results.

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So what are those 20 % of things?

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And for us, it's recording this podcast and you know, offering our coaching and you know,

and going on other people's podcasts.

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Those are the things that make the biggest difference in our business.

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Yes, we can go and redo our logo a million times over and put little colors in it and have

what the colors represent, but that's busy-ness work and it doesn't actually have the

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impact that we want.

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So sometimes simplifying can just be looking at things and saying, okay, this is the

essential parts of what I need to do.

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Look, I wanna be healthy.

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Okay, I need to eat less, move more.

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That's the goal.

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That's it.

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Yep, I think that too.

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Go ahead.

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I was gonna say, thank you for saying I have a very simple workout routine, actually have

no workout routine, but that is the simple as you can get.

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That is not true.

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You do have a workout routine and it's a simplified one based on what?

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based on

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the vibrating machine, which please give the right word so this doesn't sound.

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that is not what so I bought it.

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It's a whole it's a whole body plate vibration and if you stand on it and it moves, it

moves you at 40 Hertz per second and it replicates your body moving like it would 40

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times.

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So when you do a push up on it, it is you feel completely weak because you're doing like

you know, five, six, seven push ups.

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And you can't do much more because your body is having to adjust to this vibration.

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And they actually have found that it's really good for bone density and moving your lymph

around and everything else.

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yeah, so my workout is basically I stand and watch TV while this thing vibrates and I do

some squats and I plank for maybe a minute, which is a really long minute on that thing,

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and a couple of other things.

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And that's it.

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And then I go for a walk.

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workout routine that has netted results.

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I think the eating is a great one.

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know, money is a big category, but so is eating.

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And I do feel like if there's people out there who want to get healthier or lose weight

for health reasons, I...

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do find that people overcomplicate or they're like, well, why can't I lose weight?

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And it's like, it's great if people are like counting their macros and doing all these

things and they're really into it.

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But there are some people that stick with it and there's some people that burn out cause

there's like so much to learn.

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And Andrew and I have collectively, he's lost 30 pounds and I've lost 20 in the last year

because we've really had to clean up our diet for our health.

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And we've done it.

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in a very simple way.

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are not counting macros or calories or any of these things.

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We've just started eating really healthy food and that's it.

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Yeah, and it's been an experiment.

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don't want people to think that we just did it, but we keep track of the things that make

us feel bad the next day or even two days after, or immediately, in my case, sometimes.

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it's just about, simplifying doesn't have to mean boring, but there are certain benefits

to having boring eating, because then you stop eating for entertainment.

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Yeah.

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that was definitely one of my issues was that, you know, like seven o'clock rolls around,

I'm kind of like, you know, cause I'm trying to simplify a lot of things in life.

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I'm like, okay, I'm just going to go get something to eat.

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But now I don't buy any of those things that I used to stock a pantry with because they're

not good for me.

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And it is, yeah.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So yeah, it's my budget is very, very simple now.

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I mean, I've got,

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I've got seven or eight line items on it.

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And when something else comes up and I'm like, what is that?

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There's that always that need.

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like, I can make this a new budget line.

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I'm like, nope, it's either groceries, house, kids, something else.

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Or, you know, like I haven't really, really narrowed down because it is the act of like

trimming down the non-essential to get to the essential.

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And that's a really, really important thing.

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Yeah, yeah, so to reframe the health thing, us losing weight was not the goal.

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It was a byproduct of our very simple way of trying to find the foods that cause

inflammation.

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For me, having autoimmune diseases, Andrew has allergies and working on his gut health,

and he was kind enough to do the experiments with me for accountability's sake.

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And just because I spent a lot of time together, just so that he wasn't like eating a bag

of Doritos, making me jealous because I can't, you know.

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So we just kept a very simple sheet of like what made us feel bad the next day.

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And then we just stopped eating that except when we relapsed and we're like, well, maybe

this burger won't make me feel bad.

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And then we realized that we were just fooling ourselves.

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And then after enough times,

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and enough relapses, you just accept your fate and then that's it.

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And as a byproduct, both of us are the healthiest we've been at the lowest body fat

percentage that we've been in my adult life.

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I'm not counting like high school days or anything like that.

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No, for me, it's high school days too.

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mean, not that I was, it really is transformative when you find the foods that work with

you and get rid of the ones that don't.

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It's like taking rocks out of the backpack.

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Suddenly you're like, my gosh, this feels so much better.

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And yeah, the relapse stuff, mean.

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That's a different episode.

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Let's not go down that road.

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We're human.

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So if you're out there right now and you're going, okay, well, I really want to simplify

this one area of life.

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Does something call you to talk about, Kat, or do you want to just talk in generalities

around?

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Well, I was gonna say it is that, but if there's something you wanna do and you haven't

done it yet, whether it's start a business, write a book, get healthy, learn a new hobby,

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chances are the reason you haven't started it yet is because you're over complicating the

process in your mind.

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It seems way too big or way too hard and you feel like you don't know how to do it.

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Whether it's like, I don't know, learning how to do your own taxes or like, you know,

figuring out, I don't know, your kid learning to drive.

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I don't know what it is.

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The chances are that your brain is making that unknown way bigger, more complicated, more

challenging than it actually is.

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And you can take any task or any goal that you have and just make it very simple.

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It's just one step at a time.

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No one expects you.

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to run a seven figure business in your second month of business.

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Just take one step, file your LLC, open your business bank account, make your website,

whatever, and don't over complicate it, just get her done.

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Sorry, it was an internet glitch.

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Didn't mean to interrupt.

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problems today with our software, but that's okay.

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I was at a good stopping point.

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was just saying, get her done, know, take one thing at a time.

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Yeah, and I think when it comes to simplifying, giving yourself permission to be okay if

you're wrong, know, like, file the LLC, if it doesn't work out, if you've missed a line on

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the form, they'll send it back, they will let you know, and you just do the next thing.

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Yeah, don't worry about that.

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But the point is when you're, when you are actively trying to simplify your life, don't

make it this overarching thing that you have to simplify.

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everything at once.

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You don't have to throw out all your clothes and go black t-shirt, black pants for the

rest of your life.

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You can gradually go into these things.

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Some might say that I have too many clothes and my way of starting to simplify that is to

not buy anything else, clothes-wise, and then start to get rid of the things that I'm not

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wearing because I really don't want a giant wardrobe.

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I just have a hard time getting rid of stuff.

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Mm-hmm.

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if it's still good, you never know when I'm going to need that tattered t-shirt that might

still fit me from grade 12.

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But it's there.

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Well, I think that if people are having trouble getting rid of things, the one thing that

I always, and I've shared with you before is to think about the person that you're, you're

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blessing with it.

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Right.

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And, for example, Andrew had like a second refrigerator in his utility room that he wanted

to get rid of.

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Like I think you tried to get rid of it for free in your building and no one wanted it.

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But then you sold it for like super cheap to someone and you were like, I really wanted to

give it away for free.

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I wanted to bless someone.

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I'm like, you did.

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Frigerators are a thousand dollars.

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Like you gave somebody, you gave a family, maybe their fridge just broke and they lost all

their food for that week.

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You don't know the reason behind it.

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Or maybe they're giving it to their elderly mother who's, you know, whatever it is or

putting it in a rental unit that will give them passive income.

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But for super cheap, instead of going by a thousand dollar refrigerator, they got it from

you and it was perfectly working and clean and all the nice things.

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And that's great.

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So,

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Sometimes if you can reframe it, it can help you to get rid of things.

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I like that.

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Thank you for reminding me of that.

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Again, I need to just stop cluttering my mind with complications and just give myself the

simplicity.

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The gift of simplicity is really what it is.

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And I think that's it for so many things.

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When you get down to the basics, the essentials, you can look at things a little

differently and go, okay, you know what, I'm having a hard time with...

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I don't like that.

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Let's just say you and I are having an argument and I'm like, okay, I know Kat is always

super kind.

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We always give each other benefit of the doubt.

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And when I get back to the basics of like, we're good people.

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We're just having a hard moment and that's okay.

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We simplify things rather than going, well, what if it's this, what if it's that?

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Because your mind will make up those stories when it comes to those types of things.

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And the same thing is, when you are working with customers, when you're working with

coaching clients, when...

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Whenever we're doing something, it always comes down to, you look, there's too much

clutter on the table.

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We need to just wipe it, clear it all off and put what's important in front of us.

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And when you can do that, you start to see that, yeah, you don't, you're never gonna wear

60 t-shirts.

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It's a little less than that, but not much.

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And it's okay to help other people with that stuff.

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It's okay for you to have a very basic breakfast that nourishes you.

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And that's it.

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doesn't have to taste like a five-star Michelin chef made breakfast.

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That is your joy by all means.

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But simplifying things just is the act of removing the unnecessary so that you can enjoy

the essential more.

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And the more I do that, the more I see the benefits in my life.

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And it's a step-by-step journey.

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is not a, you know, I'm not gonna swipe everything off my desk right now and go, okay, I

just need a keyboard and a mouse, you know?

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Like, it's not just that.

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It's an evolution.

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And the more you do it, the more you flex that mental muscle, the better it gets, the

easier it gets.

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And the more your life kind of has more space in it in all the ways.

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Yeah, and to add to that, I would say, and when your home gets more space, your life gets

more space, your budget gets more space, try to actively practice living with the empty

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space because all of our first tendencies is going to be to fill it.

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Once the counter is clear, it's like you want to put a candle on it.

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Right.

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Once you have room in your budget is like you think of something else to go spend it on or

some other thing to sign up for because you have the room.

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Try to practice having the space, try to lean into the space and lean into the simplicity.

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I think that, keeping those things in mind, the takeaway is a simple simplicity can

improve your mental health.

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Pick a category, don't try to do it all at once and think about the feeling you want to

have at the end.

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You're going to encounter resistance.

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You're not going to want to get rid of things.

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You're going to worry.

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You're going to need it.

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You're going to think it's too complicated to like consolidate your debt or whatever it

is.

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Just kind of choose one thing to work on at a time and just give yourself the grace that

you need and think about how you're going to feel at the end when you have a

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that's not cluttered, when you have a budget that has several line items crossed off, when

your kids have an afternoon free during the week and it's not packed full of activities.

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Whatever it is, whatever you're trying to simplify, just know that the feeling at the end

is gonna be just like that, a nice exhale.

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And that's the feeling we're working towards, the calm feeling of space that is so rare in

our society.

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but we believe that it's one of the many pathways to a happier, calmer life.

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I think that is an excellent place to move into our glimmers for the week.

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So Kat, what's the thing that's lightened you up this week?

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Speaking of minimizing, I bought some stuff.

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All right.

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Well, my parents gave me a gift card to Amazon for my birthday, which was several months

ago.

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And it took me forever to think about ways to use it.

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And, cause I, cause I am like very, minimalist by nature.

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don't buy a lot of things for myself unless they're from my thrifting adventures, but I

did use it to purchase a, like a black chair to put in my shower.

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and like a shower mat and some shelves to put inside the shower for all my shampoo and

things like that.

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And it looks so much better in there.

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It's definitely like, you know, I live in an older apartment building and it's got this

like super cool, funky retro tile and stuff.

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And I don't know, I just go in there and it looks a lot nicer and it was a gift.

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So I gave myself permission to add to it and it's making me feel all glimmering and

sparkly today.

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I like that.

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I really like that.

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Congrats.

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I know when you have a gift card, it can be really tempting to rush out and use it for

whatever comes up next on Amazon.

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the fact...

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Well, I think it's great because you put some purpose into it.

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And I think that's way better and way more enjoyable than just using it for your next

Amazon subscribe that comes up or whatever the case is.

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About you.

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My, you know what, I have this new ring that I'm, my Kickstarter ring finally came and I'm

getting used to it.

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And it's kind of like an aura ring, but it's, I bought it because it expands and it's a

circle ring, C-I-R-C-U-L.

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The app isn't very great yet, but it's tracking a lot of cool stuff.

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And I'm just trying to make sense of the data as far as like sleeping goes and.

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It actually measures your energy and stress throughout the day, which I thought is really,

really cool.

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So I'm excited to see how they get better with the app, it's a, yeah.

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the initial Kickstarter fundraising efforts for them.

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So they're very new and in their infancy.

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Yeah, I bought it back in March and it took me till September to get it.

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I think they had production delays and stuff like that, but it felt kind cool to support a

company like that.

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that's my little glimmer, my new toy, so to speak, that's going to help me track things.

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Anyway, guys, yeah.

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Thank you so much for listening and we will see you guys next time.

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Take care.

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Thanks guys, bye.