If you listen to The Lazy Genius Podcast, you’ve probably heard how Kendra reccomends that you limit the number of gurus that you follow in your life. I didn’t realize how much I needed this advice, until I heard it last summer!
When I’m stressed, I look outward – someone on the internet has to have mastered this! Last summer, I was tuning in to fundraising gurus, podcasts on how to declutter, articles about how to get your spouse to help with housework, how to live more efficiently and effectively. How to do more with less. As I was trying to optimize my life, I didn’t realize that I’d gone past the point of being more effective to the point of trying to use life hacks to splice my being into smaller and smaller peices. In fact, trying to follow all these systems was making my life less desirable, instead of more.
Once I heard Kendra’s advice to not have more than one guru per life area, I started trimming. My podcast subscription list was cut in half! I stopped checking out nonfiction books from the library. I unfollowed many YouTube personalities. It was the permission I needed to take a breath. But there were some voices that were still valuable, and here’s who made the cut in no particular order.
- Brooke McAlary, host of The Slow Your Home podcast and author of Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World. Much of my current perspective on living a good life is owed to Brooke and her husband Ben’s inspiring podcast, where they talk about their imperfect journey to savor the world and raise their kids. I kind of want to be Brooke when I grow up. She is incredibly honest about the role that postpartum depression played in realizing that she wasn’t living a life she would be proud of in the end. Since realizing that she needed to make a change, she’s authored multiple books, and they’ve even uprooted their family to live in the Canada and the US for nearly a year. Slow is a must-read for anyone who is considering living with a little less stuff and a lot more intention.
- Kendra Adachi, The Lazy Genius, podcaster and soon to be author. I first came across Kendra when I was trying to figure out how to plan meals without wanting to die. Meal planning is both enjoyable and an anxiety trigger for me (thanks, brain), but Kendra’s method of embracing brainless crowdpleasers is super calming to me. She started out as my go-to guru for household maintenance and routines, but I’ve also found a lot of values in her approach to self-care. I also like to have her keep me company as I putter around the house. Follow her instagram @thelazygenius for more inspiration.
- Sarah Von Bargen, author of the Yes and Yes blog, coach, and teacher extrodinaire. Sara is my happiness guru, and I learned about her through the A Simple Year course that Brooke McAlary was also a part of. Sarah’s approach to money and happiness is a big influence on my life experiment and my path to financial independence. Her approach to happiness and money brought me a whole new lense on how I have tried to buy happiness in the past. I love her sassy attitude and her focus on traveling in smaller cities. She also has a No Grocery Challenge book that is gold when you want put yourself on a spending freeze and clean out your cabinets. (Hi, my name is the FI Value Engineer, and I’m a food hoarder…)
- Brad Barrett and Jonathan Mendonsa, hosts of the ChooseFI podcast. A dear friend turned me on to this podcast when she told me that she was building a studio efficiency apartment in her house, post divorce, to allow her to house hack and buy her freedom from her mortgage. I devoured the episodes, as it appealed to both my frugal self, and the part of myself that wasn’t happy in my job. I love their approach to building a community that is learning from itself, sharing replicable strategies to not have to subscribe to the rat race. I’m on a waiting list for their new book Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence.
While I go through stages where I try to collect more gurus, these are the ones I return to again and again. I limit my googling by starting with their websites and podcasts, and then decide how far down the rabbit hole I need to go.
Who are your gurus? Not sure? Check out Episode 32 of Emily P. Freeman’s The Next Right Thing podcast, “Stop Collecting Gurus” for an interesting approach. Emily pops on and off of my radar, becuase she’s a little too churchy for me, but she has some amazing pointers here. If you know who your gurus are, pop them in the comments below!