Welcome, everybody. I'm Samantha Kristofferson. My name is Emily Hasegawa. So thanks for watching the preview of our course and jumping in and wanting to see what embracing minimalism is all about. It's a topic that we're really passionate about, because we use minimalism with every client that we work with. And we have use it with our own lives for so much time, that we are so happy that we are able to create this course for you.

Yeah. So let's just dive right into it that this video is about what is minimalism? And I think that you know, often you can see by the first kind of slide here that it's really just about having around you what's important. So for what was important for our first slide was just seeing that one seagull, okay. But let's, let's get more serious about what what is minimalism when you think about that word, do you have a reaction? Do you see a certain image?

Do you have a certain assumption about what you think that is? For some people, they believe that it's You know, a room that is lacking color and just having a small bit of furniture. Yeah. And we find that a lot of people always go to the extreme. When we mentioned minimalism, what they always think about is an empty room, a boring space, a nod that has almost nothing need. And minimalism is so much more than that.

Oh, yeah. So we also sense that a lot of people get a little bit defensive, because they feel that it seems that they should be more minimalist, but they are not. And so it's very interesting to see the reactions that people have about minimalism. So in this course, we really want to make you aware of what minimalism means and how many different definitions are out there. And you just have to pick the one that works for you or create the one that works for your life. So we believe that minimalism can mean something very different for each person.

And we wanted to share with you some of the difference issues that we believe are important. If you've never heard of the minimalist out of the US, they are two dudes who have really led the forefront of speaking about minimalism, raising awareness about minimalism. And and they say it really nicely that it is a tool and we believe that minimalism is a tool. That's why we use it with our clients, when helping them declutter and downsize. But it's about eliminating excess and and finding room for the other things in your life that are important. The happiness, the fulfillment, the freedom.

Yeah, we want to say that minimalism is a journey. And you will always find people that are going to be ahead of you that you can get inspired from. And you will always find people that are maybe getting started with it, and you can inspire them. And you will also find people that have nothing to do with it. And when you mentioned the word they will be. Yeah, they would freak out and probably they won't even want to talk to you.

So you have to read, you don't have to force this on anyone. This is a personal journey. And you can only inspire others by example. But if this is your journey, so you have to make it habit for yourself this definition here. And at any time during our videos too, because we have text on the screen, we just want to let you know like, feel free to hit the pause button and give a good read through these definitions or the things that we share with you on a slide. We try not to put too much on there.

But just know this is a that's the benefit of technology is that you're able to control what you're seeing. So just give a pause if you want to give a read to this longer definition. Yeah, this definition that we like it also because it mentions a lot of aspects of your life. minimalism doesn't only apply to your physical life, it also applies to finances to distractions are basically any area of your life where you are not feeling great. You can probably use minimalism to try to find what's important for you and eliminate the excess Excess means something that it's not important is not adding value to your life. And it's basically on the way for you to get to your goals.

I really good website, Excel lifestyle.com. They really say that minimalism is all about the reassessment of your priorities. And we really agree because sometimes we've forgotten what our priorities are. And that's like full admission here. I forget what my priority is on a regular basis, which is why I practice kind of going back and reflecting on what are the things that I want to be doing? Why do I have these frustrations?

How can I prioritize maybe this this, like, I love to play a guitar? Why am I not playing it as much I need to go back and I need to prioritize it in my calendar, make time for it, make room for it. So assessing your priorities, it allows you to strip away and melt away all that excess that you don't want to have. And it let it gives you permission to let go of those things so that you can be open for opportunities in your life. Yeah. And also, it's important to know that life evolves.

So we are always evolving, we are always moving ahead. And priorities may change, life circumstances may change. And that's what you need to reflect every few months, every few weeks, every few. Everybody's different, but for us is every kind of three months, two to three months is when we feel like we have to really make sure that we are reflecting everything in our lives, make sure that the priorities are still like something current, something that applies to us. And for business, for example, we reflect every week. So you have to find that happy balance for you.

And it's okay if some priorities change and if they are not a priority anymore. Just reflect said the new ones and just keep moving forward understanding why that happened. And that's it. And it really is a feeling sometimes. You can also notice in yourself red flags like things about your personality or things about you behavior that you recognize, like, Whoa, I just got way too angry about that person cutting me off on the highway, like, why did I get so angry? That's a red flag.

Something else could be, you know, like, wanting to, you know, keep your distance from a lot of people always wanting to be a part and introversion is great. And that's wonderful. But are you normally someone who likes to be a little bit social, sometimes looking at those kind of behaviors and being like, Whoa, it turns out, you know, I've been neglecting some area or something like that. So we've tried to make it simplify. You'll notice from those previous definitions that they had this common theme and that was excess, okay, excess exists in our lives. And they also had in common that we needed to find the importance and we needed to find the priorities in our life.

And the only way to do that is by getting rid of the excess. Yeah. So once you can get rid of that excess once you can got through that noise that is on the way for you to, to find your priorities and to get your goals done. That's when you can then find that meaning that joy, that value, the happiness that we are all looking for. That's when you can feel fulfilled. And that's when you can feel freedom.

So the access sometimes it's on the way for us to get to where we want to be. Sometimes because we are so distracted, because we have so much information so much happening in our life. We're always so busy. If we don't really reflect if we don't make the time to set the intention. And to really define what's important for you. We will make it happen because someone else will set those priorities for us.

So minimalism is a great tool, great ideas that you can use to eliminate that excess, whatever that is in your life. Find what's important, prioritize it, and then be able to feel the meaning the joy, the value, and the Happiness that we are looking for. So thanks for tuning into this video about to finding kind of what minimalism minimalism is for you. And as we said, it's different for every person. So my minimalism does not look like Emilio's minimalism. His minimalism does not look like your minimalism, it does not mean that you know you have to live with 33 things in a backpack it does not mean that you are only permitted to decorate your home in in monotone colors.

It means very different things. So think about the reactions you had when you thought of the word minimalism and ask yourself have they changed? Is it really something that now you're kind of understanding, wait a second, minimalism just means getting rid of the distractions getting rid of the clutter and and finding out what what's really important to me. So join us in the next video and we'll keep moving