Minimalism is Not What You Think

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Automatic transcript, lightly corrected for names, with profanity masked. Some passages may contain transcription errors.

Welcome to The Inner Circle. I'm Mike Brown and I am here with Kevin Dahlstrom. And the whole idea behind this show is that iron sharpens iron and we're going to have the conversations that we would have behind closed doors anyway. Today our topic is one that is near and dear to Kevin's heart. And on the heels of our last episode something that I've changed my mind on. And that is the concept of minimalism. So the prompt today is a cartoon that you posted posted. And for the audio listeners, it's a guy in a Bugatti saying I wish I had a yacht. And then underneath that a guy in a Porsche saying I wish I had a Bugatti. And then underneath that is Kevin depicted saying damn my Lankers are sick. Yes. So Kevin tell me about minimalism

and let's go from there. Yeah. So this cartoon by the way, I didn't create it. A guy named, a guy on X named James Reeves created it. It went super viral. I mean when I saw it, it had 55,000 likes. So clearly it was hitting a nerve. And the funny part for me was I'm like, I'm the cliche in that cartoon. I mean literally, the guy in the Porsche who's just striving for more and then below it, the guy in the old Land Cruiser who's like this car is sick. That was literally me. So a quick story. And this is one of my first actually viral posts I ever put onto X years ago was the story about buying a Porsche. And the short version is

in my mid 40s, I landed this big C-level job at this multi-billion dollar company. The compensation package was awesome. And I was like, you know what? I'm, I'm going to reward myself. I'm going to go buy a Porsche 911. It's a car that, when I was a teenager, posters of literal road and track magazine, hung on my wall. It was the epitome of success to me. Like, you know what? I'm going to buy that car. And so I went to the Porsche dealership in Dallas, wrote a check for $220,000. This was, you know, 10 years ago, so I'm sure there are more now. Bought the car, you know, and it wasn't a financial stretch. So that was nice. Got the car home. Beautiful 911 twin turbo convertible white. It's in my garage. I'm laying in my bed at night.

and I can't sleep. And what I realized was that car was not giving me the satisfaction I expected. In fact, it was stressinging me out. And I think the epiphany I had was that I'm not 16 year old Kevin anymore, whose dream of success is owning a Porsche 911. My values had changed. And, you know, there's a whole story around how really rock climbing was a big catalyst for that. But it wasn't my definition of success anymore. So the punchline is, I took the car back to the dealership to their credit. They took it back, shook my hand, said, you're the first person ever to do that. And that was really my first big dip into the world of minimalism. And you know, minimalism is not what most people think it is. But I'm going to pause there and let you respond to that a little bit before we

go into sort of what minimalism is and what it isn't. Well, you compressed my decade-long journey into 24 hours. So get on here for learning the lesson a little faster. But mine actually has a slightly different arc, which is, cars were a big part of my life. I also had the red Lamborghini Countach poster on my wall. But I grew up connecting with my dad over cars. We love cars. We go to car shows. And, you know, when I made my first million dollars, I bought my first cool car. It was an Audi S7. And then I bought an R8. And I've had many, many cool cars over the year, over the years. And when we met, I had a McLaren 720S and a Lamborghini Huracan

Tecnica. And I've sold both of those in the last year. And the reason I sold them was not because I don't like them anymore or I don't like cars anymore. It's because me. And I knew it. I went out and checked the odometer and I put like 800 miles on that car since I bought it. And one of my favorite quotes is, like, show me your bank account and

show me your calendar. And I'll show you what you actually value. It's Peter Drucker. Well, my bank account said I valued these cars, but my calendar wasn't, right? I wasn't actually using them. They, they were an artifact of a life that I loved, but was actually no longer congruent with who I am now. So I just tried a little thought experiment. What would it be like without them? So, so that's my journey to minimalism. It's slightly different. And I'm, I'm proud of you for divesting of, you still have supercars, but I'm, I'm also proud that I played maybe some small role in that by influencing you, just pushing you over the edge. But,, but I think what it's interesting, the contrast in our stories, because you, in fact, not only kept the supercar, but acquired multiple of them and had them for

years, loved them, that sort of gets at what minimalism really is. And this is the big misunderstanding. Like, so most people think minimalism is like a lack of sacrifice, like denying yourself of anything that brings you joy. And actually, it's the, it's the exact opposite. Minimalism is about asking of everything. Does this bring me true joy? And if it does, keep it. If not, get rid of it so that you can make room to like gorge on the things that do bring you joy. So in a way minimalism is almost like hedonistic. But I think, when I asked the question, does this bring me, true joy? The key word there is me. I think what you have to be, be, what you have to be about is who am I doing this for? Who do I own this for? Who am I buying this

for? Why am I doing this? And if it's because it does bring you true joy, that's great. . Minimalism can look like having four supercars in your garage. But if it's, if it doesn't bring you joy, or if it's, you're doing it to signal to others or for a variety of other reasons, then maybe you start questioning that. Yeah. And for me, I mean, I can really honestly say, like I bought those cars for myself. They were less a signal to the world and more a signal to myself that I made it. But owning them in 2025 was allegiance to a past version of myself. Yeah. And I think that's where minimalism gets really interesting. It's not just asking,

once does this bring me joy? It's continually asking, does this bring me joy? And so enter the Marie Kondo way of life of, hey, just serve me really well. I don't regret buying it. And it's not what I, who I want to be or what I want to spend my time doing now. Well, I mean, sort of your core life philosophy is I think you say it as like, the right to be a different person five minutes from now than I am right now. And so because you think of everything in life as a process, which I absolutely think is the right way. It's all we have anyway, right? Is the living in this moment. So I think that's the right way to think about it. the notion of minimalism is

it's not about the money or whether you can afford it. So whether you're a billionaire or you're broke, there's the famous line from Fight Club is everything you own owns a piece of you. And that really is true. And I'll tell you, the older I get, the more I want less. I mean, I just want a simple life. And that doesn't mean I won't have nice things. I mean, I still live in a nice house. Actually, as' as we speak, I have 10, 20 something year old house guests staying with us. And it?s a lot, but it's to be honest, it's a ball. My wife and I get so much joy out. And it's only possible because we have this, this big a** house in Boulder that can sleep 15 people. And so that's minimalism for me right now. Yeah, it's such a great point because I also made a fairly viral post on acts about selling

my super cars. And there are some people that invariably go, cool, why don't you sell your big a** house too? And my answer is this house is actually a huge source of joy for me, right? I host people all over the world. We host parties all the time. I host retreats here, like it's inspired my work. This is my sanctuary. I built this incredible home I poured because two and a half years of my life into designing every inch, every detail. And the level of satisfaction and well-being that I get when I wake up in the morning, get my cup of coffee and go, you know, sit on my patio and look at the red rock cliffs just, just out here to my left. Like that is wealth to me. And yes, this house costs a lot of money,

but that's not actually the point. Yeah. All right. Let me, let's check ourselves on our b******* real quick, if you don't mind. Because I want both of us to answer this question. You know, I'm guessing there's some people listening to this who will say, oh, great, a couple of rich guys talking about minimalism and how they're, you know, multi-million-dollar houses are minimalist to them. You know, that doesn't apply to me. How would you respond to that? Yeah. Minimalism in, for me, and this is where you've shaped my thinking, right? Is let me gorge on the things that do bring me joy and let me get really clear on that, right? So it has looked like paring down for me in the last year, but I was, I was paring down from a pretty extravagant level, right? And,

and the renunciate path is a path to enlightenment, right? I mean, monks renounce worldly possessions and they go live in the monastery, but their worldly needs are taken care of by donors, right? I mean, they have three meals a day. So, so the money loop is sort of closed for them. If we choose to live in Western society, right? We have to engage in the in the money conversation somehow and I mean, the reality is, look, it's easier to be be rich than poor, right? I've been both, right? It's it's so nice to have the luxury. But it's also important to just continually update your opinion and go, am I engaging in excess for excess sake or is this actually bringing me joy?

Yeah. I think it applies at all level. The answer would be sort of similar is that, like, clearly having money is better than not. No one's going to argue against that. But actually, I tell people, I'm, I'm sort of a cautionary tale, like I'm the guy who made it all the way to the top of the mountain and had all the things, all the prestige and realize, you know, it's not all it's cracked up to be. And maybe that's a lesson everyone has to learn for themselves, or maybe you can take it from cautionary tales like myself. And I'll tell you one of the I mentioned climbing is like a catalyst for minimalism. You know, one story I tell a lot is one of my good friends guy named Thomas, he lives in Vegas. He's a rock climbing guide, ex military. He's never made more than $70,000 a year in his whole life.

But my I used to, you know, became friends with him, I would observe his life. And like Thomas, how in the hell do you have a better life than me? Like you're always traveling doing cool stuff, you have freedom, your schedule is not booked up, you know, you make enough money to like live a pretty good life. He's got a house, you know, small house in Vegas. And like, I have checked all the boxes, I did everything to do what society told me to do. And you have a better life than me. And that was very eye opening. And I think so, so the way I react to that is that I've been aggressively paring down and as you know, my wife and I just became empty nesters. And we're actually having a lot of discussion right now about how do we take that even to the next level. Yeah, and this is, I think a really poignant conversation because the version of myself

that went out and made the money is a different person than I, than who I am now. So I am incredibly grateful to that, younger version of me who was the hard charge in brazen, young Navy fighter pilot turned oil and gas investor. I mean, that, that that guy provided me this life. I don't know that I would have the gusto to go do it again. Yeah. Well, and then the other thing is, like, there is some thread of, like some piece of all of us wants to signal. I mean, it's just unavoidable. And I think I mentioned to you before that like one thing that my wife and I are thinking about is downsizing from this big a** house, which, you know, even though we use it a lot, you know, 95% of the time, it's just my wife and I

kind of bumping around in this house. And so, but, but I will tell you, like, it's crossed my mind that like, if we buy a condo and then I have, you know, the Mike Browns of the world, my friends who I really want to impress come visit, are they going to be like, Oh, I thought Kevin was successful. You know, like, that, that does enter my mind if I'm being honest. Yeah. I mean, of course it does. Right. And, and anybody that, that tells you it doesn't is lying. I mean, we live in a consumerist society, right. And even like everything you buy, even, even if you, like, even if you're the pragmatic Tesla owner that says, Oh, I don't care about cars, I'm just going to buy a white Tesla. Well, that you're still signaling something to the world about you, you're signaling your pragmatism through your,

your pragmatic car. And that's okay. Like all of our choices signal something. It's just, is mys my unconsciously signaling or am I, my consciously signaling, right? The fact that we can actually bring humor into it and go, Oh s***, like what are my friends going to think? It's kind of funny. It is. I will say there is a, there is a, a solve for that. That this will be kind of maybe my last thought on this subject is what I've learned is there are decisions you a make purchases you can make that are not only cheaper, but they're better. They're, it's like best of both worlds. And the reason is the reason is because they are simple. And the example I use, you mentioned,

like I recently bought a Tesla Model Y. It's not a fancy car. Like you're not going to impress anybody with a Model Y. It's not the best looking car. But that, I think it's like the closest thing to the perfect car that's ever been designed like full self driving is amazing. It's simple. There's zero maintenance on it. And it just does its job. And that makes me so incredibly happy. And it also does send a signal that I want to send,, which is like, that's what I value is just like simplicity, elegant design. So what I'm talking about really here is like, understand your brand. Like, you know, because.

My calendar strongly supports. And so those decisions make me feel good. And I'm proud of them. I don't, I don't worry about what people think because that's the brand I want to build. Yeah. And that's exactly what I'm saying, right? You've brought that subconscious into the conscious and go, yeah, I know this is signaling. And, and this is the signal I want to project. And I, and I think that's the right way to do it. I'll finish with, with a story that really hit me recently is I took my wife out for her birthday to Bruto, which is an amazing Michel

I rip out the credit card, and swipe without thinking about it. In Walmart, I'm doing these middle gymnastics of like, oh man, should I really buy this $600 video, video game console? The hilarious thing is I've probably played, you know, in the last couple of weeks, 30 or 40 hours with my son, we've laughed our a** off. Like we've had a great time. I've actually gotten so much more cost per use, like like, a value out of the $600 video game console than I did the $121001 And it did it Like it really kind of shifted my perspective of like I'm kind of over it Like my wife and I went on a date last night and we went to the little local Chinese place And we spent $7.00. Well, actually that reminds me of maybe a good way to wrap this up is and our family mantra which hangs on a post-it note on our refrigerator is hung there for years

My girls repeat it while rolling their eyes at dad And I think a huge key to minimalism is if you're going to spend spend on experiences And there's no no greater example that than a Michelin star meal. We love Michelin star meals We don-we don't do it all the time, but it's a great investment when you can save up and afford it and You you introduced a twist to the Nintendo switch thing, which is you turned it in that became an inexperience right what there is literally no better experience than 30 hours with your son like that's peak right and so you enabled an experience and Those investments are no-brainers. I think when it went to a thing for the sake of the thing

That's when you should that's the ones you should question. Yeah, that's it right and like it's actually it's not even just between me And my son we had my wife and daughter join Playing Mario Kart like but our whole family is sitting around with tears in our eyes laughing playing playing these video games Priceless it was such a priceless experience even and my wife's birthday was nice But it wasn't nearly as much fun as the video games Yeah Well, we could do another episode about like how to become a connoisseur of experiences because honestly That's really how I've evolved is I think of myself as an experience connoisseur. I enjoy orchestrating experiences for other I know you too and There's real there's a real art to it and it's not necessarily about money

I mean Final thought, you know Coco Chanel Says the best things in life are either free. You're very very expensive. Love it Banger alright, let's stop there. All right. See you man. Thanks brother