Greetings, SuperFriends!

Today we are joined by Courtney Carver. Courtney is an expert in how you can be more with less.

I know what you're thinking – “is this an episode on minimalism?” – but it is actually an episode on so, so much more. I really enjoyed this episode because we went wide on how you can simplify various different aspects of your life, why you might want to, and how to get started.

This was really relevant for me in what I'm currently going through, trying to simplify my life, simplify my business, and just optimize for a new variable, which is happiness and health, as opposed to growing and achieving more.

So I think you're really going to enjoy it. I certainly did. And if you do, let us know, send us a little tweet or hit us up on the Instagram machine.

-Jonathan Levi

This episode is brought to you by BluBlox. Click here to save 15% on their amazing blue-blocking glasses, for all orders placed on their website, by adding coupon code SUPERHUMAN at checkout!

This episode is brought to you by Natural Stacks. Click here to save 15% on their Premium Supplements for a Better Brain, for all orders placed on their website, by adding coupon code SUPERHUMAN at checkout!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who is Courtney Carver, what does she do, and how did she get here? [3:00]
• Is living with MS possible, and how does that look like? [5:25]
• How did Courtney go from her diagnosis to being a thought leader on simplifying our lives? [7:30]
• What is the big deal with simplifying? [12:45]
• What does Courtney think about the energy of things? [17:20]
• What are some steps you can take to start this journey? [20:50]
• What are some areas in your life that you can simplify? [23:35]
• Our relationship with ourselves and its connection to what we have [32:30]
• Changing the metrics, instead of removing them completely [37:00]
• Things that Courtney Carter does to perform at a SuperHuman level [39:30]
• Where can you learn more about Courtney Carver? [41:30]
• Courtney Carver's final takeaway message [41:50]

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondō
• Be More With Less
• Our previous episode with Cedric Waldburger
• Courtney Carver's Instagram

Favorite Quotes from Courtney Carver:

Transcript:

Welcome to the award-winning SuperHuman Academy podcast where we interview extraordinary people to give you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here’s your host, Jonathan Levi. 

Jonathan Levi: Before we get started, I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by Natural Stacks – maker of natural and proven formulas that help you alter your mood, your state of conscious, your focus, your relaxation, and much, much more.

Natural Stack has an entire line of products from Serotonin Brain Food™, Acetylcholine Brain Food™, Dopamine Brain Food™, GABA Brain Food™, and of course their popular Neuro Fuel and MagTech® products, all which are designed to help you improve your brain chemistry naturally and safely. 

Now, personally, I love their products and I use them pretty frequently, so I reached out to their founder, a past podcast guest, and we together came up with an awesome deal. You can get 15% off the entire lineup of Natural Stacks products by going to naturalstacks.com/superhuman once again, that's naturalstacks.com/superhuman.

Greeting, super friends and welcome to this week's episode where I don't actually have a review to read out on the air. So if you haven't left a review yet, please go ahead and do so, and I will embarrassingly mispronounce your name on the air. It's fun for everyone, I highly recommend it! 

On today’s episode, ladies and gents today, we are joined by Courtney Carver. She is an expert in how you can be more with less.

I know what you're thinking – “is this an episode on minimalism?” – but it is actually an episode on so, so much more. I really enjoyed this episode because we went wide on how you can simplify various different aspects of your life, why you might want to, and how to get started.

This was really relevant for me in what I'm currently going through, trying to simplify my life, simplify my business, and just optimize for a new variable, which is happiness and health, as opposed to more and achievements.

So I think you're really going to enjoy it. I certainly did. And if you do, let us know, send us a little tweet or hit us up on the Instagram machine.

Without any further ado, please enjoy this epsiode with Courtney Carver…

Courtney Carver, welcome to the show! How are you, my friend?

Courtney Carver: I'm very good. Thanks for the invitation. 

Jonathan Levi: Oh, it is my pleasure. I am very excited to talk to you today because I've recently experienced some of the magic of what you're going to be sharing with our audience. And I got to say it's really, really good stuff.

Uh, and, and just, I think something that I can really get behind as a, I think that'll just make all our lives better, but before we get into exactly what it is and, and your expertise in specialty. Tell me a little bit about that. Your journey, your superhero origin story, if you will, and how life brought you down this path to where you are today?

Courtney Carver: Sre. Well, I think it all, who knows how far it really goes back, but I typically start the story and 2006, when, after decades of trying to live life, the way I thought I was supposed to, and. Working too hard, spending too much being in way too much debt. Uh, always chasing more, always proving myself, always, you know, just never feeling like I had enough.

I was always overextended. So never enough money, never enough of the right stuff. Never enough energy, never enough time. I was always running late, but looking around me, it seems like everybody else was sort of running that same race. So I thought, okay. Okay, this is adulting. This is how we're going to roll.

Uh, but that all kind of came to a screeching halt in 2006, after months of debilitating fatigue and vertigo tingling in my hands, numbness in my face, uh, and countless tests and visits to different specialists and doctors. Uh, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And ironically it's while I was training for the , which is a cycling event to raise funds for ms.

Research. 

Jonathan Levi: Oh my gosh. 

Courtney Carver: And so it was just so not only was the diagnosis shocking, but to have that happen while I was doing that work was just really crushing. I mean, I, I, it never occurred to me that that could happen to me. They always say the things that happen. Aren't the things you're worried about. I definitely wasn't worried about that.

But it gave me after of course, a couple of weeks of being super freaked out and trying to figure out what this meant. I immediately took a step back and thought, how did I get here? Where am I going? How am I going to live well with this disease? Is that even possible? 

Jonathan Levi: Is it, I mean, I I'm, I'm not up to date on the current scientific research with ms.

And, and what, what does that look like for you? If you don't mind me asking. 

Courtney Carver: Yeah, well, yes it is. That's the good news. Um, ms. Multiple sclerosis looks really different for everyone. There's different forms of the disease. Um, I think the only thing we all have in common is that as of right now, there's no cure and there are treatments, but the way that it.

It manifests in different people looks different. So it could be that people are having relapses every so often that include anything from the symptoms that I mentioned, like fatigue and vertigo or some tingling or numbness, it could include cognitive decline. It could include vision impairment. Um, it could include, you know, Loss of feeling in, in your limbs.

It really runs the gamut in terms of symptoms. But a lot of people do really well with ms. And when I was diagnosed there weren't the treatments as many treatments as there are available now, nor were there the, the recommendations of eating better. Lifestyle changes, things that you can do to live well with the disease.

And so I was kind of on the hunt for what that looked like. And every, all the research that I did kind of pointed to stress, eliminate stress, reduce stress. And that was my goal. It was never to simplify my life. I didn't know I was going to take that path. I just knew that. One thing at a time, I was going to reduce and eliminate as much stress as possible in my life.

And today it's now 2020, and I haven't had a relapse since 2007. 

Jonathan Levi: Good for you. Congratulations. That's wonderful to hear. And I think now is a really great time. We're recording this in, in April of 2020. It's a great time to talk about stress and specifically the kind of stress that I, that I, I hope where this conversation goes because so many people are at home right now.

They are so stressed. 

Courtney Carver: Tell me how 

Jonathan Levi: you became aware from the state of not enough of anything not. I love how you articulated it. Not enough time, not enough energy, not enough stuff. How did you get from there to being a thought leader on the topic of minimalism and having less deliberately 

Courtney Carver: well from experience first and foremost, and then also from major.

Mind shifting over the course of the changes that I made. So again, like I said, I really, I didn't even know what minimalism was. I didn't care about simplifying my life. All I thought was what is something that is stressful in my life that I can change right now, just one thing. And I kind of went through this process of one thing at a time over the course of many years.

So looked at diet. What did debt. Looked at the clutter in my home and looked at how I was spending my time looked at the work I was doing, the home I owned and all the crap that was in it. And again, very slowly started removing things from all these different categories. And I think it was. Around the time that we started paying off tens of thousands of dollars of debt, that I realized that the common thread in the changes that I was making was simplicity.

And that's when I started to get interested in minimalism as a lifestyle. And maybe this was more than just decluttering my kitchen, you know, maybe removing these things forever would remove even more stress from my life. 

Jonathan Levi: So tell me about that, the journey and that process. I mean, were there books, were there certifications were, how does one go about starting with minimalism?

Because our society it's so many decades for most of us of programming, that more is better and it's not, you don't just flip a switch I imagine. And one day decide. So. Did you just start by, I mean, along the way, did you encounter Marie Kondo, other thought leaders? Did you just start making up the rules for yourself?

Tell me a little bit about your transformation. 

Courtney Carver: Yeah. In the beginning, it really started with making up the rules for myself and much of that as the same now, although there's plenty of information out there, that's been beneficial to me. Uh, but this became so much more than. Letting go of my stuff. It was a, an experiment and trusting myself.

That was the biggest thing. So up until this point, I always just kind of did what I was supposed to do, what I should do, what I thought other people wanted me to do. Um, boy did I want to make everybody in my life happy. Uh, but I didn't really realize I was doing that at the, my, the risk of my own. Health and wellbeing and happiness.

So I remember in the very beginning of this, like in that summer of 2006, going to a meeting, like a support group meeting for newly diagnosed, ms. Patients, and I had done a lot of research on the internet and found all these, like. Possible fixes, like take this miracle cure and you'll be better. And I remember having a list of them because you, in the very beginning, you're so desperate to find something that might work.

And I asked the nurse practitioner what they thought of it, and there was, uh, someone else in the room and he asked me a question back and he said, what do you believe? And him asking me that question really changed the trajectory of my journey completely because in that moment, I went from begging for advice to asking myself, what do I believe?

What do I believe is best for me? And that's how I began to make every single decision. From that point forward. And so when I was changing my diet, it wasn't a doctor recommended diet change. And it's nothing that I would recommend for anyone else, because I don't know your body. I don't know what's best for you.

But based on the research that I did, it looked like removing most animal products. Um, certainly all animal meat to remove inflammation from inside my body. That resonated with me. Um, did I do a degree in nutrition to figure that out? Did I, no, I didn't. I just trusted myself and I thought, if I'm wrong, then I'll try something else.

It works for me. I can tell, 

Jonathan Levi: I can tell now I want to ask, I think there's someone out there in the audience, you know, I I'm a, I'm a convert, right? Because I've realized that getting rid of a lot of stuff, I'm actually going right now. And I haven't talked to my audience about this. Uh, so I'll, I'll tell you first Courtney, you're the first person to know outside my team is I'm going through this exact same thing with my business, where I'm realizing I've built maybe a bigger business that I wanted, that I was happier when it was me and a bunch of, you know, a few really cool people putting out products for people that they love and no red tape, no bureaucracy, no, you know, three year plan and vision.

And I, and so I'm simplifying and, uh, and don't worry folks, you know, where I'm still gonna be around, but I'm simplifying and cutting out the things, uh, that I don't enjoy in the business. And I, so I'm a convert around this, like simplify your life, improve your life, get rid of stuff, whether it's, you know, at home, whether it's burdens, whether it's whatever I'd love to hear you talk from your perspective and your experience for someone who doesn't.

Understand, like what's the big deal with simplifying and, and minimalism and, you know, getting rid of all this stuff. 

Courtney Carver: Yeah, well, let me first be clear that I really don't care what you call it. Uh, I don't think it, you have to label yourself a minimalist or aspire to live with the least amount of stuff. I think that's probably just as damaging as living, trying to live with the most amount of stuff.

Right. And instead, just think about what the right amount of stuff is for you or what the, what things really add value to your life. What. Things do you own versus what things own you. And this is a great time to do that. More of us are home right now. We're starting to really notice our surroundings and you can see like, Oh yeah, I use my juicer every single day.

That's a great thing to own, but I also have this rice cooker and I don't eat rice. So why do I have this rice cooker went through a phase a couple of years ago, ate all the rice, the rice cooker served its purpose. Now I never use it. Let it go. Uh, but the tobacco to your question, the big deal about this might not be about each individual thing.

It's more about creating an environment that you want to thrive in. And I think we dismiss the weight that. Excessive clutter, and even just stuff that doesn't serve us, being around has that impact that it has on our mental state. I know, especially now where we're cleaning more than ever before. I like, I just don't want to move things around to clean my countertops.

And so I'm even now many, many, many years into this giving things, even extra thought like, okay, is this really necessary? Uh, and for the most part, I've found a pretty good place for myself, but it doesn't look like, like this isn't a prescriptive, like here's here are exactly the things that you should own in your life.

But I think the more intentional we are about what we include in our life, the more intentional we'll be about how we live our lives. 

Jonathan Levi: Yes. And, and I think that's a really great point. And I went to recently a lecture on KonMari method. Uh, and, and someone asked, you know, is this minimalism that you're talking about?

And they said, it's not. And I don't know where you stand on Marie Kondo and, and all her stuff. But what I liked about the way this person answered this kind of certified. Practitioner was, it's not about minimalism. It's not about labels. It's about getting rid of stuff that you don't need, whatever that means for you.

You know, a family of five with young children has different needs than myself and my wife. And for my experience, it's not just about having extra space in the house. It really is about when you get to the point where everything you own is something that you like. Something that you love, and there's nothing blocking between you and the things that you love.

Uh, it's you have a happier experience, whether that's on your computer or it's in your closet or it's in your kitchen cabinets or it's in your phone book, by the way of, you know, relationships that are not serving you. Um, where do you fall on the energetic aspect of this? Because I know some people, Marie Kondo being one really believe, you know, that there's an energy to the things in your home.

And if you're surrounded by things that you don't really even like that that's bad energy. Do you, do you subscribe to the kind of spiritual side of 

Courtney Carver: all of this? I mean, I'm open to that for sure. And, and to spiritual things and other ways, but for the most part. I think our stuff just drains us emotionally.

So I think the things that we own carry a lot of emotion and that, I mean, that could be energy, right? Emotional energy, whatever you want to call it. But I think for instance, in the closet, if you have a closet stuffed full of a decades worth of wardrobe, you've almost definitely have clothes in there that don't fit you.

That makes you feel bad. You have clothes in there with tags still hanging on. That makes you feel bad. You have clothes that you bought because they were on sale and then you never worn them. That doesn't feel good. So I think removing, and here's the thing as you're, you're gravitating towards your favorite items anyway, why not just give yourself permission to only choose from your favorite things?

And that could go in the closet in your refrigerator anywhere else. Um, and I don't think it's about having a ton of amazing, lovely things either or things that you love or worshiping your things by any means, but maybe you're clearing space for something completely different. Like you want to start your own business or you want to be more focused or you want to be able to pay better attention to your loved ones.

Eliminate those distractions, get them out of the way. This isn't about like replacing the Soso things with perfect things. It's about getting rid of the things that you don't care about. Don't need, don't want in an effort to make room for more of the really good stuff. So I always like to think, like I don't, I didn't get rid of my clutter stress, the busy-ness to have a simple life.

I did it to have a life. Like my life, the life that I want and the life that I want to continue to be intentional about and create. 

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Alright, let's get back to the episode. 

Where are some steps that people can begin? How did, how do we start this journey? A lot of people right now, we're at home. Hopefully by the time this episode airs people will be out and about, but we'll have the, uh, The experience of being stuck in a home that maybe had more stuff than they wanted, or in a life that maybe had some things that they don't want.

Where do you even start? 

Courtney Carver: So there's two things that I really recommend. And I'm not going to give you decluttering tips because I know everybody can Google how to declutter. And actually, I know everybody already knows, like you take your stuff, you put it in the box and you take the box out of your house.

However, there are two things that will make this a. More sustainable change and any change you made you make. And you've probably talked about some of this before, but I really had to change the way I changed to make any of this work. And the first thing that I had to do is make big change small. So instead of waking up and thinking, I'm going to declutter my life, my entire house, the garage, and my car and my kitchen and my closet.

Instead, I'm thinking today, I'm going to declutter my junk drawer. And then when that little space is clean and clear, and I'm happy with my accomplishment, I'm going to use that momentum and confidence that I created to tackle another space. And then I'm just going to keep doing that for as long as it takes.

And there's no. Like deadline on this. So I'm just going to keep using that momentum to move on to the next thing and remember, and remind myself that big change is the result of hundreds of tiny steps. And so I'm just gonna keep taking the tiny steps. And then the other thing is that I need a really good reason to change.

I'm not going to declutter so that I can have clean countertops. That's nice, but it's not life changing. It's not going to put you into a decades worth of, of change and commitment or longer. But if I believe that letting go of my stuff is going to allow me to better connect with the people I love or improve my health.

Or give me a good night of sleep or allow me to travel more, whatever your thing is, write that down. And then when things feel tough because they will, at some point, I mean, it took us three years to pay off all of our debt. And there were times where we were like, Oh my gosh, is this ever going to be done?

And we'd remember why we were doing it. And that would keep us going. 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What are some of the other areas in your life that you I'm going to use the term decluttered, but give people some ideas of all the areas of their life. They can simplify. 

Courtney Carver: Oh, wow. Uh, I think I could say every single area and I thought I would be done in a couple of years and here I am 14 years later still finding things to simplify in my life.

Uh, so my diet, um, my money and my, and it's not just the, like getting rid of the debt, but I changed my whole relationship with. Money, same with stuff and shopping, like really just changed the way I thought about it by doing the work. And it wasn't just like flipping a switch and like, Oh, I don't want to go shopping anymore.

I don't feel like I need new things anymore. It was a longer process of really figuring out why I was shopping, which was to ease pain. He's pain of boredom, of disappointment, of sadness, of whatever. Uh, and realized that there are better ways to treat that pain. And some of it doesn't even need to be treated, but I just didn't want to feel it.

So I would shop it away. I think it's one of the ways that we like to numb out, whether that be food, shopping, booze, anyway, going off on a tangent here. Uh, all right. So shopping clutter, uh, Debt my work, I worked in advertising sales and my career for close to 20 years was in sales and marketing and took a couple of years and shifted to writing and talking to people about simplifying their life.

I mean, that was a night and day, both lifestyle and career move for me. Uh, But that came from simplifying my work while I was working that job and learning everything I needed to learn, to make the transition in a way that I wouldn't. Um, I guess that I would be able to sustain a new business and all through these changes, I'm focusing on my health.

So if I noticed that I'm creating more stress in my business or in my life, Through the changes I'm making I'm backing up and trying something different because if the whole purpose is to reduce stress, why would I do anything that would increase it? Yeah, we downsized from 2000 square feet garage, attic storage shed in the backyard to an apartment less than half the size.

Uh, That was a, a really major shift, uh, and no storage of any kind. So everything that was in that house went eventually. Um, by the time we moved or I think, of course I don't have a really sure way to measure this, but I would estimate that we have 90%, less stuff than we did when we lived in our home. Um, and then the, the shifts and changes that I've made really moved from.

The clutter and the calendar and to more of like an inner the way I think about things. So not believing everything. I think that was a big shift for me because I thought everything I thought was true as it turns out that's not the case, but that helped me trust myself even more when I became willing to question what I believed and what I thought.

Um, and then. Last year, 2019. And again, I kind of thought I was done with the, the big changes, but in 2019 I started, uh, I did two things. I eliminated one thing and I added one thing. Um, the thing that I eliminated was alcohol waiting for you 

Jonathan Levi: the same thing, years video, 

Courtney Carver: uh, yeah. What a difference, what a different day, night and day, night and day I would agree.

And. I mean, even though I wasn't at a place in my life where I was partying all the time, I love to have wine with dinner. Um, I loved to drink on the weekends. I loved to travel and drink, and I remember I stopped drinking in January, 2019. I didn't plan on stopping for good. I never thought that would happen.

I was planning on stopping for a month or so because, uh, I went on a trip, had too much to drink. Got a bad hangover and thought I need a break. But then after the 30 days, I thought I feel really good. I might just keep going. And I had a trip coming up too. Um, Amsterdam and Paris, and I thought I'll, I'll stop until I get to Amsterdam and Paris because I'm not going to be in Paris and not drink champagne.

That doesn't make any sense. But by the time I got to my trip, I didn't want to drink at all. And I've never gone back and never have missed it. So the way that that's improved my life is beyond. Um, and then the thing that I added was a transcendental meditation. 

Jonathan Levi: Oh yeah. Same. 

Courtney Carver: Wow. We have a lot in common.

So I had meditated for years, uh, really since pretty close to after I was diagnosed, but I would do things like Headspace, which I think is great. And I still dip into that if I wake up in the night and need a sleep story or something like that, but I always liked guided meditation because. Just sitting quietly.

Like my mind was, I thought it was too distracted, but since I started transcendental meditation or TM last March, so March, 2019, now I meditate twice a day for 20 minutes quietly. And it's like, I, it's not something you can really explain or at least I can't, it's different than any other meditation I've ever done.

Um, it's easy. It's, it's really added a lot of value to my life. 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You said a lot of really interesting things there. One that stood out to me and, and as I mentioned, I mean the business piece I've been guilty for years of building more complexity than I should. The money piece is really interesting because I think a lot of us, you know, try, at least I've always tried to heed the wisdom of diversify, vary up your income streams, you know, never put all your eggs into one basket.

And in doing so, I mean, I recently applied for another mortgage. We want to, uh, we want to buy a bigger house and now you got me questioning that as well, but we applied for a mortgage and just, it was like 50 reams of paper. You'd be like, Oh, well, I also have this little investment in this thing here. And I just put some money into this thing.

And then there's the, you know, this it's like 500 different income sources. Like heaven forbid if I ever get hit by a bus, like I hope my wife can figure it all out. 

Courtney Carver: And 

Jonathan Levi: it adds a lot of stress. It, you know, it affords a wonderful lifestyle and everything, but that wonderful lifestyle becomes less and less necessary if your goal is less.

So 

Courtney Carver: definitely. Definitely. And again, I mean, just like clutter, it's different for everyone. Um, I know one of the things we do is. We have a, what I call a simplicity summit. Uh, we used to do it every month when we were really in it simplifying. And now we probably do it twice a year, but it's just a time where we review everything having to do, starting with money, um, where we are, what our expenses are.

Where we're investing. Uh, so we're both on it. My husband and I we're both on the same page with how everything is, and then having conversations about what's important to us. What direction do we want to go? Do we want to make any changes? Do we want to live somewhere else? Do like all the big questions that cross our minds all the time, but you don't want to have that conversation when somebody is on their way to work or.

When you're out for a hike like there, I think there needs to be inappropriate. Not that you can't bring it up, but if you really want to dig into numbers and get some things going, I think having like a, a meeting of the minds, so to speak, then you can really make a lot of progress and talk about things that might feel uncomfortable with each other.

Totally 

Jonathan Levi: totally. Now I want to ask because your website is called, be more with less.com, make sure to check that out. Folks be more with less.com. One thing that I, I think is interesting and I'll give a personal example, not because I'm so interesting, but because it'll allow us to forward the conversation.

Um, I looked at my wife the other day and I said, you know, part of the difficulty and part of why I've built stuff in this way is wanting to kind of. Be more, achieve more, do more prove to maybe not to others, but to myself that I've exceeded my previous limitations. Do you have any suggestions? Because I feel like a lot of the reason people want more, whether it's more money, it could be more friends.

It could all of the reasons and things that we want more of. I think a lot of times it comes down to feeling like we are more. And how do we work through that? Because everything in our being at least the way that we're conditioned socially tells us that that is true. And yet it is not true. I think we know it's not true.

And yet you still have to make that mindset adjustment. Any thoughts, tips, journaling exercises for folks who, who do say, you know, what. Courtney. I do associate my bank balance or the number of cars in my garage with my worth. And I want to change that. 

Courtney Carver: Yeah. Well, I, first of all, I understand that because I did it for a long time, whether it was my hitting sales goals or, uh, what I owned or the way, well, there's always something to measure.

Right. But when I think about being more with less. When I say be more, what I really mean is be more you or be more me. So be, be more true to yourself. I mean, that's how you learn to trust yourself. Be more sincere, um, be more compassionate, be okay. Just being, and knowing that like right where you're sitting right now.

No matter what's happening outside of you, that that's your worth like this is you. That's all that matters in terms of measurement. There's nothing on the outside that is going to appropriately measure what's on the inside, but we're so uncomfortable with ourselves that we put all of our energy into.

Ways that we can measure, like, see, look, I got all these things on my to do list done. I'm amazing. Or I got on the scale today and I lost two pounds. I'm so awesome. The problem with that is that there are an equal amount of days when we do that measurement thing and we come up short. And then we don't feel good and then we lack confidence and then we start to doubt ourselves and it's this vicious circle.

So look at the ways you measure and see if you can stop doing that. Even if it's an experiment or a challenge, like for 30 days, I'm not going to weigh myself or I'm not going to, um, Make a, to do list or I'm going to only work from one to do list for a whole month. So there's no like you must get all of these things done by the end of the day or you're a failure.

Uh, and the same goes for money. Like money is a tool it's. It's not a representation of anything else, because a lot of the reason that you probably have the money that you do is because of the privilege you have and the situation that you're in. And I'm sure you work hard as well. And I'm not just talking to you, I'm talking to anyone who might be resonating with this because I have told myself the same thing.

Um, yeah, I was really good at what I, I did. I think I'm good at what I do now. I don't mind making money, but I know it's not a reflection of, of who I am, because that means that someone else who isn't making the same amount of money, they're less than I am. That makes no sense. Right. Like when I start to frame it like that, it's just, it's nonsense what we'll do to ourselves to feel secure and to avoid being ourselves.

So just focus on being more, you. 

Jonathan Levi: I do want to ask you, you raised something, you know, there will always be something to measure. And one thing I've been playing with, I want to get your honest feedback here. You may think this is a bad idea in which case I'm the host of the podcast. So I get to ask you, which is really nice.

I'm changing the metrics right? In our business. We're always thinking about like, what do we actually want to measure, right. Do we want to measure dollars or do we want to measure students impacted or do we want to measure and thinking in my life. You know, if you are always going even informally, right?

It's not like I have a spreadsheet. Uh, but even informally, if you are always going to measure something, then what about changing the things that you measure? For example, instead of how much money is my business making or how many, uh, you know, how many square foot feet does my house, have you measure how many hours this week did I have to spend with my family?

Or how many days did I take off this year? To do things that I love and that's something I've been playing with. It is still measuring. Right. But it's measuring things that I think are going to make me happier and optimizing for them. 

Courtney Carver: And I like that. I think definitely less measuring is good, but I like to think because for me like that to do list was a really, a really big source of.

Struggle in terms of measuring. And so I say to myself, now I'll measure less by what's on my list and more about what's on my heart. And you're really saying the same exact thing within your business or within your life, like measuring the things that are heart things and not things that you can write down on paper, for instance, or things that.

Have numbers and dollar signs, uh, you know, have all those things, but when it really comes to measuring your life and I'm certain at the end of your life, you're not going to be like, Oh my God, remember that Wednesday where I didn't get anything done. And I lost all that money in the stock market or whatever, it's just not gonna matter.

And so if it doesn't matter, then. Why does it matter right now? Um, that's, that's what is happening. I think for a lot of us in April, 2020 is we're realizing that so much of what we thought mattered does not. That's good news because it's giving us an opportunity to ask the question what matters to me and then acting from there.

Jonathan Levi: Right. Right now. I know we've pretty much come up on time here, Courtney. I do want to ask, uh, any other things that you do. We mentioned diet, we mentioned, uh, a lot of mindset, you know, not believing everything that you think, any other things that you do to optimize your performance at a higher level?

Courtney Carver: Yeah, a lot of things, uh, I work out. Almost every day, I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Um, I also don't get stressed out about food anymore in terms of like, I'll have a treat or a snack or make dessert and just have zero stress the way that I used to around things like that, because it just doesn't make any sense to me to be 100%.

One way or another. Uh, and the other thing I do that has really helped me a lot is that I dress with 33 items or less every three months, including clothes, shoes, jewelry, and accessories. Um, it's part of project three 33, a fashion challenge I created in 2010. That's now a book and it's. Something that I thought I would only do for three months.

And here I am 10 years later still doing it because it relieves so much stress and makes my life much easier. Um, yeah. 

Jonathan Levi: So cool. So cool. So 33 items, including everything, accessories, shoes, socks. That is no 

Courtney Carver: socks. Don't count a couple things. Don't count. So you don't count underwear, lounge wear or workout clothes, but your workout clothes have to be working out.

Jonathan Levi: Got it. Okay. I love that. I interviewed on the show, someone, uh, who ran the website, 64 things.com and he owned a total, including computer, you know, iPhone, total of 64 things. But, uh, I think most of those were clothes really, really cool. Now, Courtney, where can people reach out, learn more about you get in touch?

Is there anything they should particularly check out on your 

Courtney Carver: website? No. I think the best place for us to connect is through the site. Be more with less.com or on Instagram, where I am at being more with less. 

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Love it. And before I let you go, Courtney, one last question I always ask, which is if people take away one really big message from this episode and they carry that message with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope for that to be.

Courtney Carver: Trust yourself, you know, you better than anyone else. And so trust that. 

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Fantastic, Courtney, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you, learning from you and laughing with you. And I hope we do stay in touch. 

Courtney Carver: Thank you. 

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