Happiness Through Subtraction

When I think back to who I was ten years ago, I wanted everything, and more of it. I lived inside the illusion of endless choice, dead set on trying it all — and ideally all at once.

A few years ago I read Greg McKeown’s Essentialism, and I highly recommend it. The book changed the way I think. It taught me to name what truly matters, to pour my effort there, and to cut away the rest.

So I started a personal experiment in business, and it’s still running. I began picking just a few key opportunities — the ones with the biggest potential payoff — and putting everything into them, while delegating or dropping the rest. It’s a lot like the Pareto principle, where twenty percent of the effort gives eighty percent of the result. At first, letting go of a whole eighty percent of the opportunities was painfully hard; the fear of missing out followed me everywhere, and in the early days I really did lose some income. But before long the results started speaking for themselves. A few big bets I dove into headfirst led to even bigger ones, and so on. In the end the “small stuff” fell away on its own, free time for reflection appeared, and my mind began thinking more strategically, in longer arcs.

I won’t pretend the turbulence stopped right away — it still hits me at times. But I eventually came to understand that I want to keep only the essential in my life, and to focus on that.

I sell or close companies that don’t fit the core focus; I part with things I rarely use. Cutting out everything without real value multiplied my sense of happiness and contentment, and my anxiety dropped noticeably.

I cut out unnecessary actions, meetings, even thoughts. My mind grew calmer, free of the wandering thoughts that used to tear at me with cravings and a hunger for every temptation the world has on offer.

You might think my ambition simply dulled with age, but that’s not it. My hormones and testosterone are in great shape. And this isn’t about downshifting, asceticism, or giving up material things. If anything, the quality of life only went up, because I no longer scatter my resources — I concentrate them on getting the very best the world has to give. I value what I have, and I enjoy it more than I used to. The dopamine receptors clear out.

Freedom isn’t chaos, where you get to do anything and everything — it’s choosing what truly matters and consciously letting go of the rest.

Here’s to all of us choosing our priorities! 😎