TEDxAsheville - Adam Baker - Sell your crap. Pay your debt. Do what you love.

In 2008, after the birth of his first child, Baker and his wife decided to sell everything they owned, pay off their consumer debt, and spend a year traveling abroad as a family. They began sharing their journey in early 2009 on the blog Man vs. Debt, now 15000 subscribers strong. In sharing their ups and downs in the areas of personal finance, consumerism, clutter, travel, minimalism, and passionate entrepreneurship, they realized they aren't alone in a desire to explore and grow.


In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

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• USA
• English
• TEDxAsheville
• Business
• Education
• Social Change
• debt
• Freedom
• culture
• Lifestyle
• Adam
• Baker
• Mman
• vs.
• Debt

[thePhillipO]

Great. The only thing I do not agree with is "we are the freest people in the history of mankind" it is not true at all. we are slaves. to money and the monetary system.

[Epicself]

Wonderful Adam! Thanks for the reminder to stay minimal. Since I sold everything 3 years ago I haven't gone back and plan to never deal with stuff again. Adaptability is key. The freedom and endless opportunities are fabulous. The Native American's definition of insanity is hoarding things funny enough :D. I'm sharing this with my network. Keep up the fantastic work buddy!

Amber

Epicself.com

[l2elesane]

@thePhillipO Of course, you can gear the argument with regards to the over regulations of our lives by government or what Ted Kaczynski called "reduction of the power-process."

[l2elesane]

@thePhillipO If he's talking about political freedom then you are entirely right. However, he may be talking about the freedom that comes with what Emerson called self-reliance. In other words, the ablity to be completely independent with regards to energy, food, and shelter. Noted, this can only be accomplished if you own land; and to buy land you need money. So we do have to resort to using money in order to acquire land, but once we own our land we are able to do whatever.

[nucowa]

Whut? How did he sell all his crap? Tips please? Thanks for telling me I hate everyone.

[ReadDoug]

thank you for your positive information! hats off to you!

[thePhillipO]

@chinezero no I got the message... But thanks for caring to reply.

[chinezero]

@thePhillipO You obviously missed the entire message. Work to do stuff you are passionate about. Freedom as in the fact that we are able to do what we want. We can travel the globe if we want. We can go out and buy massive loads of crap if we want. In freest people in the world we have an opportunity to sell everything we own and leave. We are not tied down to live a life we don't want to live if we choice not to.