 I had it all. I had it all. I had the fancy title. I had the job. I had the fancy cars. I had it all. And I was 24 years old, and I made one slippery move in my career. I was taking ownership of a business that I was purchasing. And as I took ownership of it, I neglected to notice that there were 10 years of back employee withholding taxes that had not been paid. And as I took ownership of that business, the IRS came right after me. They immediately closed the business down. They confiscated everything we had, including company cars, and they sued me for the difference after they sold everything at an auction. There I was 24 years old. My credit was completely screwed up. I had nothing to show for the hours that I had put in, like 20 hours a day for the last couple of years. I had nothing to show for it. And I realized in that moment that not only were my priorities not aligned, but that all the things that I thought were going to make me happy one day when, when I had achieved those things actually did not make me happy at all. And I sunk into a really deep, dark state of depression because I didn't have the skills, the coping skills to be able to work through that particular area of my life. And so I said, that's it. I'm going to have to give up on everything. I'm going to have to go get a real job. And I had this moment of truth where I was accepting myself as a failure. And I said, I've got to dig deep in here and I've got to go get me a real job. Well, I didn't have a car because my cars had been repossessed. And there I was on the city bus. I had to walk a couple of miles to get to the city bus because I did not live on a bus route. I got on the city bus and it was raining outside. So now the business clothes that I had put on and I was trying to impress the new whoever was going to be the boss. They're now wet and soggy. And as I got on the interstate on the city bus to go to the job interview that I was, I was going to have that was going to save my, my life, supposedly. I get on the city bus and the city bus breaks down in the middle of the interstate. I kid you not, it breaks down in the middle of the interstate during rush hour traffic. And I am sitting there on the city bus actually was standing squished up with a whole bunch of people trying to make myself skinny. And they're all hot and sweaty and rained on. And I mean, it just kind of like reeks in the bus of like, Hey, there are too many people on this bus and we all have like rain residue on us. And I'm sitting here and I'm just stuck in traffic and we're stuck on the interstate and I missed my job interview. And I was sitting there feeling so sorry for myself. I'm thinking to myself, how did I get here? Right? I just had it all. And as I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself, the most unusual thing happened. I looked around me and I'm in North Carolina. And if you've ever been to North Carolina, there are thousands upon thousands of trees. And so as I looked up and down the interstates from the view of the city bus, there were thousands of trees everywhere I looked. And I said, Oh, wow, check it out. There's an abundance of trees. And the rain was pouring down on the interstate. And I said, There's an abundance of rain. And then I looked at the bus around me and like I said, we were all squished there and we were I was trying to make myself skinny. But there were a bunch of people on this city bus. I said, Hey, look, there's an abundance of people on this city bus. And as I looked at a stuck in traffic, there was an abundance of vehicles on the interstate that we were stuck in traffic on the interstate. And I said, And there's an abundance of cars all around me. What are the odds that I am feeling at my lowest right now? And I'm feeling discouraged and depressed. And as I look around, I am surrounded by abundance. What are the odds of that? All right, I'm super excited that you joined me today. My name is Angela Brown for those of you that have just joined me. If you're not familiar, I've been a professional house cleaner for 32 years 25 years in the field. I've been training cleaning organizations for the last 32. And I worked with thousands upon thousands of families. Okay, so as I've been in the cleaning industry and I've been working with families, we've discovered a lot of things about clutter. The reason I share this previous story with you is because at the state of my my most desolate moment in my life. I didn't know what abundance looked like. And if I didn't know what it looked like, how on earth can I expect to enjoy it when it arrives? Right. This brings me to a concept that became aware to me at about that time of my life. And it's a concept that comes from Dr. Lloyd Globerman. He's a psychologist. And his, his concept is that many people have money, but their lives are not rich. And what does that mean? Many people have money, but their lives are not rich. And I stopped to think about this for a very long time, because as I got thinking about what does this mean? I realized I had never articulated to myself what it was going to mean to be rich. And I thought in the back of my head somewhere, I'm going to work all these hours, then I will be rich. What is that a million dollars? Okay, great. What do people who have a million dollars do? I never articulated that. And somewhere in the back of my mind, I said, I will be rich when I have three weeks of vacation per year. Then I got to three weeks of vacation per year, but I did not feel rich. And I said, ha, tricked myself. It's when I have six weeks of vacation per year. So I can have six weeks of vacation per year, but that didn't make me any happier. And so I started asking myself, what does it mean to live a life that's rich? Now, on this particular thing, we can trade out the word money. Many people have money, but their lives are not rich. We can trade this out with stuff. Many people have lots of stuff, but their lives are not rich, right? It could be stuff. Are you hoarding stuff? Do you have a house of clutter? Because you think, oh, surrounding myself with all this clutter is going to make me rich. It's going to fulfill my life. It's going to answer the questions I've been asking of myself. Is that the case? Or are you here today because you have a lot of stuff or you have a lot of money, but for some reason or another, you're not recognizing the abundance of life around you? And I have to ask the question because many of us, we talked about this in another one of these sessions where we will be happy when and it's way out there in the future, right? It is something else that's going to make us happy. It's not today. And so my question for you today is, how will you know what it looks like when you have arrived? And I have to ask the question because when we went inside people's homes, we were called in a lot because people would have hoarding situations. They would have clutter situations. They would have a scary room and they wanted to know if we could accommodate them in helping them sort through that, maybe go through the attic, go through the garage, those types of things. And so they would ask us, hey, can you help me fix this room or clean up this room or organize this room or whatever? And I always asked this question, how will you know when the job is done? What will that look like to you? And many of the times they could not answer the question because they had never articulated in their mind what that looked like. Now, what's interesting about the scenario is this, when you articulate what that looks like, oh my goodness, you can tell yourself, you can tell your family and friends, you can even tell the people that you hire what this finished project will look like, right? So today what we're talking about is we're talking about decluttering your life and decluttering and finding a life of purpose by decluttering the things around you, right? It's not just stuff because you can have stuff but your life will still not be rich. And one of the challenges we have with people who have clutter and are hoarders in their homes, one of the things that happens is you can hire somebody all day. They can come into your house and they can move stuff away, they can get rid of stuff, they can hire a dumpster service or whatever, and they can come in and renovate your house and your house will look beautiful. But until you have articulated what the clutter is in your life and the reasons behind it, all of the stuff is going to eventually work its way back to you, okay? And so it's a conversation that we've been having over the last couple of weeks, and today is another one of those deep conversations because I want us to be really clear about what it looks like and will you recognize it, right? The reason we have to do that is because we can't get from point A to point B if we don't know what that is. Now, what does it mean to be rich? And I have to bring this up because if I were to say today was the last day of your life on earth, what would today be for you? Is today a day that's rich for you? And I have to ask because if you're not aware and you don't know what that looks like, how do you know if you're not actually already living it? What if, check this out, what if you were already living your richest life right now? What if all the stuff that you had right now was as rich as you're ever going to be? Is this it? Do you recognize it? There I was at my worst moment looking around and there was abundance everywhere around me. I wasn't bringing any of it into my life and I wasn't accepting any of it because I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't recognize it when it actually arrived. So the reason that I bring this up is I want you to recognize what does rich look like to you? Now this is a session that we're going to have that involves a lot of homework. The homework is asking yourself the tough questions. What does my life look like when it's rich? How will I know when I've arrived? Because if you can't articulate it, you will never arrive. You'll spend your entire life being a workaholic or going out and chasing things, bringing things into your home and stuffing and storing things in your home, hoping it's going to provide you with something that you haven't even articulated yet. That is the real challenge. The next things that we do is we ask people, check this out. Did you exist but not really live? Did you exist but not really live? Are you going to die from workaholism or from solitude or from anxiety or from old age, but you never really lived? How tragic would that be if you spent an entire life and never really knew what the purpose of life was or know why you were living it? And the reason that I bring this up is because there are so many people that are busy. They are busy and they're going from point A to point B aimlessly, drifting aimlessly from point A to point B in their lives, and they're not really consciously aware of what's going on around them. There was a particular moment in my life, and this is back in the earlier days of my career, when I thought if I worked and I worked and I worked, then I would achieve success. But the challenge that I had was everything else around me in the world of balance was kind of crumbling and falling to the wayside, because I hadn't articulated what those other elements of my life would be. And so, yes, I was a workaholic. Woo-hoo, yay for Angela, but my personal relationships were not intact. I wasn't getting along well with my siblings. I wasn't traveling to see my parents or my family on a regular basis. My social life or my personal life as far as like dating and whatever was really, really awful. My spirituality was down. My finances were down. My health was down. It was like this whole series of things in my life that if I said, is my life rich? The answer is, uh, yeah, I just checked and it's not. Okay. So a lot of times we ask people, what is the reason that you called us to help you under the clutter? There's something that triggered it. What was triggering the clutter moment for you? And why did you call our company to come help you pick up those pieces of your life? One of the most interesting things that I have to share with you is that people will say, these are the things that triggered for me. This is the reason that I called you. They will say, I'm feeling lost or I'm feeling aimless. I don't have a purpose right now in my life or I have a lack of motivation. I'm not feeling as strong as I once was and I just feel like sleeping all the time. I don't feel like getting out of bed in the morning and there's nothing that's motivating me to go. I just, I just, you know, I'm just kind of here. I don't, I don't have the energy or they'd say, I'm bored. I'm just bored. I just, I just, I don't like doing the clutter thing. And so when I get home after I've worked all day and I've helped other people, I just get home and my life's kind of cluttered and I just kind of get bored and I just want to watch TV and just chill out. I'm just bored. Or they say, I'm feeling disconnected. I called you to help me with the clutter because my kids won't speak to me. I'm feeling ashamed to have people come over to my house. My interpersonal relationships are at their all time worst and I feel terrible about myself because I feel ashamed to have people over. Okay. The other thing is that they would say I feel overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. Somehow clutter got into my life and then it just got out of control and I'm just feeling overwhelmed and I just don't know where to start. What's really interesting about this list and I'm not a psychologist and I should stop for a second and remind you, I'm not a psychologist. I'm a house cleaner by trade. And so this does not replace medical advice or therapeutic advice or other advice that you could get from a professional. Okay. This is just a YouTube channel and I'm sharing with you just my observations. That's all this is. So please don't take this as gospel. It is not. It is just a house cleaners opinion. Okay. But if you look at this list right here and you look at all of the feelings that are triggered by clutter. If you were to go to a therapist and then you were to say, hey, I have no sense of purpose in my life and I'm lacking my sense of purpose. You know what they're going to tell you? They're going to ask you a series of questions and the series of questions that you're going to end up with are going to have the same, the exact same list that's right here. Filling lost or aimless, the lack of motivation, boredom or restlessness, feeling disconnected from your loved ones and feeling overwhelmed. That's the exact same list you're going to come to if you have no sense of purpose in your life. And the reason that I bring this up today is we are here today, not to say, hey, let's go ahead and we're going to clutter out one room today. I'm going to stand by beside you side by side. I'm going to cheer you on as you clean out the room of your house. But what I am going to do is I'm going to stand beside you and I'm going to say, hey, let's take a look at your life. And let's declutter the life because if we declutter the life, the stuff that you have in your house will start taking care of itself. Now, I don't know how many of you are new and how many of you have been following us for a long period of time, but the clutter corner concept is this. Instead of going into a room that has a whole bunch of stuff and a whole bunch of clutter and things in it. And then trying to decide, let's see which things am I going to get rid of. What we do is we pack up a box of things and we take it to an isolated part of our life or our home. We put it on a table away from all the other distractions and away from all of the sentimental creations or emotional attachments that are in that room. If it's a box of books, for example, I want to get it out of the library. I want to get it away from that great big leather chair that was my dad's, whatever it is. I want to get it away from all of the things that make me feel so nostalgic and so connected to those things. I take it somewhere else and it disconnects me and I'm like, whoa, I got a box of books here. And now they just look like an old box of books. And I'm very clear about, hey, do I want to keep these books? And can I find this information online? And if I can, yes, I can. Awesome, great. Can I get rid of these books? Can I donate them? And if the answer is yes, it helps us make a decision about the stuff. That is the clutter corner concept. It's isolating the stuff that you have that you want to go through so that you can come up with new questions and new answers. Now, when you do that with the stuff in your life, oh my goodness, doesn't this get interesting? Ah, I love this. This is so exciting. I want to stop for a second and I want to say thanks guys for joining me. I've got so many folks here today. We've got Jilly Bean. She says, sometimes we need bumps in the road to slow down. Look around and reprioritize and remember how very lucky we are. Yes, this is true. Thank you so much for that. That is awesome. Carolyn B says, hello from Toronto, Canada, looking to declutter. Yes, this is a really good time and thank you for joining me here. Arizona Lilly says, you're so beautiful, awesome and amazing. Oh, you just made my day. Thank you so much. That's so lovely of you. CLN says inspirational channel. You've really helped me. Thank you, Angela. Keep up the great videos. Thank you very much. I appreciate you guys being here. This is meaningful. And this is a note from Rita is actually on my team. So she's answering. If you see something that looks like it's coming from me, that's actually Rita who's on my team. And I want to give a shout out to Rita because she, she helps all of us from day to day through all of our operations. And we would not be the channel we are without Rita kind of being the driving force behind the entire team. So thank you, Rita for joining us. Catherine Leahy says, love your show. Trying to declutter in old age. Thank you very much, you guys. This is really awesome. Jenny, hi. And hi to Debbie. Good to see you. Hi, Joanie and Jennifer and Vivian. We've got so many of you guys on the line today. And I'm really excited for that. And if you have a question, oh, and Jennifer's here. Hey, Jennifer. Jennifer is watching while she works. If you guys have a question, make sure that you put a cue in the front of it. So that as we do our lightning round, that those will be easier to identify. And I'm going to answer as many of those as I can as we go. But getting back to the elements of our life and how do we declutter those things? We have to go through a series of observations. Okay. The observations are like the observation that I made that day on the bus where I had this aha moment. And then I was like, wait a second, wait a second knowing what I know now. Can I go back to the way I was a few minutes ago or did my life forever just change? So here's what I want you to know. The decluttering process is not a one and done. You're going to be decluttering for the rest of your life. Oh, no. Really? I thought I could do it once and then I'm done. No. Here's the reason why. As we go through life, there are different things that are a priority to us at that time of our lives. And so we will bring things into our lives that are a priority that fit in alignment with that part of our lives. And then as we move on and we grow into be someone else, the things that we had in the past are no longer in alignment with who we are. And it's okay to let those go. So one of the tricks and we do this to ourselves because like I said, we never articulated, right? One of the tricks we do to ourselves is at one point of our life, like way back in high school, we were a musician and maybe we played the saxophone or we played the bass or we played the drums or the guitar or whatever. And then we inch our way into adulthood and then we get married and we have kids and our life takes on new meaning. But what happens? We are stuck with the musical instruments of our high school past. And somewhere in the back of our minds, we're like, hey, I'm a musician, right? Just like I was when I had equated myself with the title that I had at age 24. The reality is I moved on from that. I'm no longer that person. In this particular scenario, the IRS confiscated all my stuff. I didn't actually get rid of it on my own. But I'm asking you, are you still the musician of your high school days? The answer is you probably haven't played those musical instruments in 20 or 30 years. And if that's the case and you ask yourself the question, who am I today? Am I living a life that's rich? Does that mean holding onto old stuff from when you were in high school? The answer is probably no. So we're going to give ourselves permission to admit, ah, this is where it gets really tough. We get to admit to ourselves, who am I today? Who am I today? And what is my purpose today? Because once I know what my purpose is today, I can start getting rid of the stuff that is no longer part of who I am in alignment with who I am today, right? We talked a couple of episodes before and I will leave links after this is over. We have a, I think I left a playlist. It's in the playlist that's in the links below. There's one called trust issues. One of the biggest trust issues we have is not being able to trust ourselves because we are not in alignment with what we believe of ourself to be. And if we can't trust ourselves, there's no way we can progress, right? So we have to start asking ourselves some truth questions. Now, if I go to our next slide, our next slide goes back to what were you telling the doctor or what are you telling yourself about feeling lost or aimless. Many people are going through the motions of their day and they have no clear sense of direction. They're raising kids, they're going to work, they're doing the motions, they're doing the grocery shopping, they're doing all the things. But at the end of the day, it's not fulfilling. They do not feel like, oh, yes, I have accomplished life. I have achieved what their feeling is. I'm really overwhelmed. My house is cluttered. I've got all the stuff and I'm doing all the things and it's not bringing a sense of joy or a sense of fulfillment in my life. So my question is, stop right where you are right now. If this is you, is there a way that by doing all the things you were going through the motions, you could actually find joy. What if you gave yourself a happy bell or, and I say happy bell, I have these little bells that we use in our company. This is a happy bell. What if you gave yourself a little happy bell if you were able to go around all of your errands in a certain period of time? Or what if you were to give yourself a happy bell if when you went to run your errands you were able to take that estranged teenage daughter that's like not talking to you, if you were able to talk, take her with you that would then create some purpose and some fulfillment in the activities that you're doing. What if, while you are out and about, you were able to drop some stuff off at the donation center and bless the life of someone who couldn't afford the things that you are getting rid of that you no longer need or want that don't represent you in that moment of your life. How can you provide meaning or bring value to this particular moment of your life that right now we call chaotic that is not bringing any value. How can you do that? And that's the real question because if right now we can stop right now today and say, you know what today looks like a crazy day it doesn't look like I'm getting anything done but here's what I did and you make a list of all the things you did for today and then you gave them a value this is the value that this particular task brought to my life today I am really living today. I want you to get to a purpose where every day you wake up whatever kind of a day it is terrorism and might be a day of you babysitting I mean who knows what your day looks like but if you were to get up every single day and say it doesn't matter what is in my life today I may not have all the money I may not have all the things today my life is rich and you identify what today looks like as a day of being rich and then you say I'm going to show up to my day today and I'm going to give today 100% of everything I have to give if today was my last day on the planet I really live today because the cool thing is this you have permission to live however you want and if you are waking up every day and you are feeling like this where I have no motivation and I'm absolutely exhausted and I just want to kick back on the couch and I have no purpose and I can't get up and get going and I'm not motivated to do anything what kind of life are you living and the answer is you have a choice if you really want to get up and you want to do something different what does that look like what is the purpose behind your day today and if there's no purpose we need to stop and we need to regroup we need to figure out what is it that's really going to motivate you to get out of bed in the morning here's a secret for you and this is a secret that I use myself personally when I go to bed at night before I go to bed I set up my computer screens with the thing I'm going to do first thing tomorrow so that when I show up I'm not I don't know tricked into going on social media and tricked into screwing around and wasting time doing things that are meaningless when I show up and I'm not quite awake and I'm not quite myself if I sit down in front of my computer guess what my values pop up right in front of me here's what you're going to do today that's going to bring meaning into your life and then I'm like oh yes that's why I woke up today and if I stop and I think about it before I go to bed at night I'm already preparing my mental attitude for tomorrow's morning when I wake up in the morning I can sit there and I can think about getting up and looking out that is very different than me actually getting up and putting running shoes on and going out and hitting the pavement and actually going running we can trick ourselves all we want into thinking about making a difference in our life thinking about decluttering things thinking about living a life of purpose we can think all we want but that is very different than doing and if you do not do and you don't go through the motions you don't get to reap the rewards you don't get any connection and we talked about how if I don't go work out I don't get the benefits of the endorphin high from the runner's high from being out and running in the zone I don't get the nutritional value from eating the healthy meals if I didn't actually eat the food I have a little note for myself I eat vitamin supplements every day things like vitamin C and calcium and vitamin B12 stuff like that every day I tell myself I don't get benefits from the nutrients I don't take I'm the only one that benefits from that if I stay up really late and I watch TV nobody benefits from the sleep that I'm going to get if I were to go to bed early nobody except me so if you are feeling exhausted and you're tired and you have no purpose we need to just stop and restructure what's the reason why what would motivate you to get up off the couch what would motivate you to do something differently and we have to go through each of the individual things which is why people call us in for clutter now I said we're going to declutter your life and then we're going to declutter we're going to discover our purpose that comes from knowing what comes next when people say I'm really bored oh I'm so bored I got this note last week there was a woman that wanted new experiences and during the pandemic she went online and she went shopping and she bought a whole bunch of arts and crafts by the time the arts and crafts arrived she lost all interest in them and it's not that she didn't want to participate it's not that she didn't want to do those arts and crafts it's just that it didn't bring any satisfaction and it didn't I don't know it didn't seem fulfilling there was no drive and there was no motivation it just became kind of a boredom kind of thing and because of that she never actually opened all the packages and did all the arts and crafts and all the things that were of interest to her that she thought was going to bring her joy when she was looking at the Pinterest pages and the question becomes hey if I found joy going through Pinterest pages can I give myself permission to spend X amount of time per day and just enjoy the Pinterest pictures without the expense of buying all the stuff and having a drop ship to the house and getting the dopamine high of shopping and receiving the stuff and then the dissatisfaction of being disenchanted like hey I'm not actually going to do the arts and crafts I don't know how to do the arts and crafts I'm now bored with the task and now I've spent a whole lot of money that I can't really justify so I don't want to get rid of this stuff because I feel tricked into keeping it now because I was at one point interested right? If that's the case just give yourself permission to enjoy the Pinterest pages and go on every day and look at the cool stuff and go wow that's so cool and then be done with it and don't put yourself through all the other gyrations of spending the money and not getting rid of the stuff and the guilt and the shame and everything that comes with it right? Again we got to be really clear what does this look like and if this looks like I want to buy these arts and crafts because I have a daughter that's interested in painting and if I take up painting and we can paint together on Saturdays then we get even though we're not speaking and we don't really know each other very well this gives us a few hours together each week where we can go in the painting studio together and we can paint together right? There is a different meaning for actually being rich. Now your life is rich because you've enhanced it with things that will boost your personal relationships that's going to boost your creativity it's a different purpose right? But if you're just buying this stuff because someone else on Pinterest can do it and there's no real connection for you it may not be for you it may not be the right thing and so we don't want to take on a whole bunch of things in our lives that are not in alignment with who we are and alignment is the key word today I want to ask you are you in alignment with the life that you're living? And if the answer is no what's going to happen is you're going to stop doing a lot of the things that you're doing you're going to stop buying a lot of the things that you're buying you're going to be free or you're going to give yourself permission to get rid of a lot of the things that have accumulated in your life right? If you were a soccer player when you were a child there's no reason for you to still hang on to all the soccer equipment the gear and all the stuff in your house now hoping that one day a child or a grandchild is going to use it if that's not who you are and that doesn't represent your life anymore it's okay to get rid of those things right? And the reason that I say that is because we are not the same people at two years old that we are at 22 years old we are completely different people with different interests and you are not the same person at 22 as you are at 52 you are a completely different person and there's no reason that we need to be hanging on to stuff from way back when the current part of who we are today and so it's not that we got bored of something as much as it is maybe we've just changed maybe we are not the same people at all lots of people say they feel disconnected from love the ones and there's no reciprocal communication this means excuse me this means you reach out to a family member and you want to have a conversation or you want to get together and have a meal and they don't reciprocate that they don't turn your calls or they're not on the same wavelength or the same level that you are you feel disconnected and then you're like oh it's because my house is cluttered and now my kids won't talk to me we get this one a lot alright so the question becomes what would your life be if your life were rich what does that look like and it says something as simple as say hey we would have dinner once a week okay do you have to have it at your house and it's making you ashamed and it's interfering with your personal relationships can you have lunch or dinner somewhere else maybe in a restaurant or maybe at a park having a picnic that doesn't interfere with this particular stage of your life and if you are not comfortable with the stuff that you have can you get rid of your stuff so that you will be more comfortable having people over so we have to start asking different questions of ourselves to go back to like what we ask people when we come in what will the finished product look like what will the finished product of us decluttering your home looks like suddenly we're going to have family meals together okay great I can clean the house so that you're welcome to have family meals with your family have you put it on the calendar and so this is where we talk about decluttering our life if we have things that are blocking and stopping us from actually taking the next steps what does that look like and so that means I've got to make sure that it's on the calendar I've got to contact my siblings or my parents or whomever it is that I want in my life I've got to put that on the calendar I've got to lock that in stone and then I have to show up and I have to be willing to be vulnerable we talked before about trust issues I have to be willing to show up and to be you know hey we haven't spoken in years but our relationship is really important to me if today was my last day on the planet one of the things that I want to check off my bucket list before I go don't get hung up by the stuff that's in your house don't let the stuff in your house determine the relationship of are you living a life that's really rich because one of the things I discovered was this that doesn't matter how much money you have we talked before about how much money you have only makes you more of who you are it doesn't matter you can be on your deathbed and are you living a life that's rich if the answer is no I gave everything to my business but I lost all my relationships with my children and my family and I lost my health all these other things that collided because there was no balance there was no alignment then all of a sudden it's a series of different questions yeah you had all the money if you watch TV and I watched lots of these programs on TV nothing specific but there will be rich and famous people that are unhappy and they cheat on each other and they lie to each other and they kill each other and they do all these things because whatever they thought they were going to have with the fancy homes and the fancy boats and their titles and all that stuff and they're like they're going to have a lot of joy and so are you living a life of joy right and going back to the overwhelm are you overwhelmed because you're putting in so much time and so much effort and so much energy because I was at 24 I was so overwhelmed with everything in my life that everything around me actually collided and it wasn't until the moment of actual collision where there I was like hey I'm at rock bottom there's nowhere to go wait a second I got this all wrong I've got this all wrong and I'll tell you what I did just a quick sidebar I broke my life into 12 areas and I did 12 areas because they're 12 months out of the year and I focused on one area of my life for the entire month and then the next month I went to the next area of my life so I had what was called financial wellness going to get my money in order the next month was my my personal relationships and my dating am I the kind of person I want to be if I'm dating what kind of person do I want to attract in my life and I became crystal clear about what that looks like so that when it comes into my life I recognize it then we move into educational wellness and I say educational wellness because we know that at a cognitive level if we want to stay sharp and smart through our entire lives we got to know what that looks like what does that look like if we don't know how will we know when we get there right but if I wake up every single day and I learn something new what does that look like in my life so that's my educational wellness and I had 12 areas of wellness so it's financial wellness and relationship wellness and spiritual wellness and family family wellness nutritional wellness social wellness it was all the different wellnesses and what I did is I sat down and I wrote down for me what does this area of my look like my life look like if I were rich many people have money but their lives are not rich many people have whatever they have in their life and you can substitute that word with whatever and their lives are not rich you can also substitute the word rich for balance or in harmony or alignment many people have a job but their lives are not in alignment you can substitute it for whatever you want but you are the one that gets to come up with the answers I cannot give you the answers you have to come up with the answers on your own and the reason that I bring this up is because your life is your message your life is your message and I bring this up because if today was the last day on the planet for you what would today say about your life and I have to ask this question I have to be really honest what does your life look like if today was the last day what is the message that you would leave behind and the reason I bring this up is because if we don't know how on earth will we recognize it when it arrives and it comes back to personal values what are your personal values I want to share with you there's a minister that I know he's a missionary and he travels the world and he goes to third world countries and he reads stories to small children and he brings them to the gospel as you will and he has pictures of him with these children from the third world countries and he's reading these stories to them and it makes great social media posts and what have you but he's got a family at home with his own kids and instead of reading stories to those kids he's reading to kids in another country and then my question is what does the life look like if your life is rich and if you were to stop and ask him he would say oh I'm all about family everything I'm doing is to support my family and so that my family is proud of me and so that my really really are your kids going to grow up and say I felt better about my dad because instead of spending time with us and reading us in a third world country reading stories to someone else's kids what does that look like and it goes back to our personal values because if you're not clear about your personal values how do you know if you've I don't know how do you know if you're even on the right track right it's our personal values that are going to drive our purpose in life it's the things that's going to get us out of bed in the morning it's the things that's going to give us purpose at the end of the day if you don't know what your personal values are how on earth and this is the truth question how on earth can you share that with someone else if you're married how do you go to your spouse and say hey listen these are my personal values when I've achieved this then I'll know I have I have survived or I have thrived or I have accomplished whatever how do you know what that is and if you haven't articulated it there is no one in your world that's going to be able to help articulate it for you one of the reasons we ask people you call this for for cluttering help what does that look like for you and if someone says it it looks like I'm going to have dinner with my family it's not about clutter at all right it's about finding the purpose finding the why and then decluttering the stuff around it so that that can happen right but if you know what your personal values are and your personal values are based around family and friendship and faith and all this other stuff all of a sudden you now have a purpose I had a sad reality oh boy sad reality I woke up one day middle age and I said you know what I've turned into a cleaning lady that's not what I was going to be when I grew up low and behold I'm a cleaning lady and I had to say to myself you know hey am I okay with that what does that look like for me and what it looked like for me is that I had to start channeling everything that I was doing into that yes I'm okay with that that's that's that's an honorable living that's okay if I'm a cleaning lady if that is my purpose in life what changes well I'll share with you what changes everything that I do every decision that I make changes because I am going to be authentic with myself if I'm authentic with myself that means I'm being honest that means I'm being vulnerable instead of coming up with fancy lies and telling people oh yeah I've got this really fancy career or whatever I don't I'm just a cleaning lady it's not fancy it's not glamorous it's not special it's just that's just that's just who I am if we start accepting ourselves for who we are our decisions can change who we are how we communicate with people changes when we we talked about it in another another episode when we have children and the children are see us unhappy and they say hey mom dad are you okay and we say yeah we're fine when we're not fine what that does is that tells a lie to our kid that trains our kid not to be able to communicate with us and tell us how they really feel we've set the ground rules and the barriers and the boundaries saying it's okay if you're not truthful with me and then kids grow up and they don't understand why they're not they don't have truthful fulfilling relationships it's because from a very early age we watch the people that we know and trusted the most in our lives lie to us they said things like oh yeah I'm fine when no I'm not fine right and it goes to the very same conclusion when you have a spouse or you have children and you have the ability to say hey you know what right now I am I'm sad because we don't have a better communication or a better relationship between us what do we have to do to get from here to there and you can't you can't change other people right we've had lots of people say that it's not reciprocal I'm trying to forgive someone else and they are not forgiving me back what about that the good news is it doesn't have to come back at you you can communicate with someone else and if they don't communicate with you at least you have communicated to them you've given it your best shot and this is my challenge for you today can you give life your best shot and are you willing to do that because if you're willing to have an honest relationship with your children with your spouse with your parents with your friends with your boss with your coworkers if you're actually able and vulnerable to say hey I'm showing up I'm giving you 100% of everything I have I promise you this there are a lot of people that are not mature enough they will be able to give you 100% back and you cannot expect it even if you forgive someone else you cannot expect or request forgiveness in return if you are demand respect in return doesn't work that way that's not how life works people will see you and they'll go oh I respect you and they will want to respect you because you have been respectful to them if you are compassionate people will want to be compassionate back to you right it's like the law of attraction whoever we are we attract more of that into our lives but we can't demand it all of that is earned and so we have to be willing to say hey you know what I'm going to show up today I'm going to give life my best I'm going to give it my very best shot and if I'm the only one that showed up today with this mentality I gave life my very best if today was my last day I went out on top I gave it my best I'm going to give myself a little happy bell for my experiences for today right that's what this is all about and so when we talk about clutter and decluttering things from our home it's not so much about just getting rid of the stuff because stuff like I said stuff comes and stuff goes back and forth and back and forth in our lives and it will for the rest of our lives because as we change who we are new stuff will come in our lives and then as we change again who we are that old stuff will have to go out right it's going to be a constant revolving door as well as the things that are important to you and the core values that you have so it's really important that you become crystal clear on what that looks like for you all right with that who am I and what am I good at and if you're not sure I want you to ask your friends what am I good at I came to this realization well what I'm good at is cleaning house ah I'm going to have to be a cleaning lady ah that's what I'm good at okay cool I can be a cleaning lady and I can give it my very best ask your friends and family if you're not a hundred percent sure what you're good at and then I want you to double down on that and I want you to become even better because once you discover who you are and what you're good at it's going to help you discover your life's purpose now what is life's purpose there's a book that I read and this is a 30 year old book check this out this is almost as long as my career this is a book called the artist's way and I I made this up recover from yourself to discover yourself that's not the title of the book but it should be this book the artist's way is a book that pretty much is like a roadmap of how to put the past behind you not judge yourself from the past but be able to give yourself permission to start over again and it's based on the concept that when you get up in the morning you're going to grab a legal pad just regular legal pad and you're going to grab an ink pen okay this is the days before computers if I were to recommend you do it today I would still recommend you do it with an actual piece of paper turn off all the distractions turn off the computer sit down and start writing and you write what's called the morning pages and as you start writing you're going to be writing as fast and as furious as you can I think it happens that you write three pages a day as you start writing you're going to puke all your anxiety and all of your frustrations and all that stuff okay you're just going to puke it out on paper you don't reread anything that you have written then every day you write write write write and the day will come it's probably a couple weeks in when all of a sudden you've puked out everything there is to puke all of your anxieties all of your frustrations all of your guilt and shame and woe is me and blame and all that stuff you'll write down all the people in your life that did you wrong and you'll write down all the things that you're dissatisfied with and all that stuff and then all of a sudden you start asking questions why am I here what is my purpose why am I doing this why am I letting this bother me and all of a sudden your questions change and as your questions change sort of the answers that are coming through onto your paper and as you start discovering that it's okay to let go of some of the stuff it will help you discover your purpose in life I cannot tell you what your purpose is because I don't know everybody's a little bit different but as you start to discover your purpose in life it's going to help you to be on track and it's going to help you to then declutter the things in your life okay so as we start changing our purpose we start changing our focus that is the root of what is going to validate what our life looks like when it's rich right as I went through my little 12 areas of wellness what I look like for me was I'm going to have better family relationships I put together this is so cool I put together what my marriage relationship was going to look like and I wasn't dating anyone at the time this is exactly what my boundaries are this is what I'm expecting this is what I'm looking for this is what I'm hoping for this is the kind of person that I'm going to be so that when this person shows my life I'm that kind of person that will attract the person that I'm looking for and then when my husband came into my life it was easy and effortless and in a couple of days we celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary the reason I bring this up is because I had dated people for 10 years but because I hadn't articulated what that relationship would look like it could have come and gone many times but I never recognized it because I hadn't articulated it I didn't know hey that's for me that's what I'm looking for right there I had not articulated it and so until I was a hundred percent crystal clear of what that looked like and this came from doing my morning pages through this book this is only like a $14 book it's not expensive but it's kind of like a magic roadmap for life and it's like I say it's 30 30th year edition it's it's still a very effective book the reason I bring it up is this until you know what your purpose is it's going to be really hard to look at everything else and say yes I'm in alignment right Sarah says happy anniversary thank you so much that's lovely of you I appreciate that Mary Ann says Angela you're good at being awesomely inspirational oh thank you so much this I appreciate that I appreciate you guys showing up and sharing with me the love and the kindness and the support that you guys do thank you Flavia I appreciate that and Atomic I don't even know how you say this I think I already served and finished my life purpose I want to declutter because I don't need all this stuff and I want to be as streamlined as possible you know what I love this I love this that somebody has already fulfilled their life purpose if I look at this your purpose will inform the stuff you keep your purpose will inform the stuff you keep what you're looking at here's a bunch of sewing what you're looking at here's your purpose when I grow up and I have achieved my dreams I'm going to become a seamstress right that was my goal I was going to make fashion clothing and I was I was going to sew and that was going to be my heart's content and so when I woke up one day and I realized wait a second what did I become and am I okay with that I became a house cleaner so if I am a house cleaner what does that mean what does that mean and boxes of fabric and sewing notions I don't need six pairs of scissors I don't need three sewing machines I can keep a sewing machine and a serger just in case but I don't need all the stuff right if that is not my life's purpose that's who I once was but not who I am any longer then all of a sudden I can change what it is that I'm doing and why am I keeping all this stuff my life's purpose if I'm a house cleaner what is what is the best version of that what is the highest version of that the highest version is not cleaning one person's house it's making a YouTube channel and cleaning lots of people's houses are showing lots of people how to clean their own house that's a better purpose for me and if that's the case instead of me buying new sewing notions and new sewing fabric and things like that what I will be buying now are apps and new computers and I will be buying things that help me make better YouTube shows instead of things that help me make better clothing right my purpose changed therefore so did my stuff and as I start going through each avenue of my life breaking it down and doing my morning pages what I'm discovering for myself is what does a life of meaning look like to me today and if the meaning in my life doesn't look like sewing clothes then I give myself permission to say hey that was an awesome ride that was really fun all the clothes that I created and now I'm going to let that go for my life because I don't need to warehouse you know great big closets full of fabric and sewing notions and I mean I had I had it all I don't need all that if that's not who I am anymore okay and so I want us to give ourselves permission if that's not who we are to move on your purpose will determine what you let go of what you're looking at here is a closet of mine okay because I was unclear of my purpose in life I had a whole bunch of different kinds of clothes in my closet now yes they're organized and they're clean and they're protected and all that stuff but when I became crystal clear that my purpose and my goal was to become a house cleaner my closet changed I was able to go through my closet with a different level of focus and so instead of this which was kind of random haphazard and like I say it was organized but it was not in in alignment with who I was as a person and then once I became in alignment and I became crystal clear about what my life looked like and how I was going to spend the bulk of my time and then therefore informed what my closet would look like right so when I talk about what is what is in your life I can go through every room of your house right now and I am skilled enough that I can help you find little stackable bins and clear plastic storage stuff we can get rid of all the stuff of one color we can color code stuff if you want to we can do all kinds of fancy stuff but until you decide what your life's purpose is and how that fits into your daily yes this is my best day ever this is the highest version of me until you figure out what that is the stuff is just it's just kind of secondary right but once you decide hey I'm no longer sewing that's not who I am anymore it's going to be easy to say oh hey this was a really great ride and let go of that stuff let's get rid of all the sports anymore let's get rid of all the sports equipment I'm not doing whatever it is I know at one time I went through all my cake pans I was decorating cakes that was kind of like a fun hobby at the time of my life I was like the favorite aunt and I had the nieces and nephews coming over on on Saturdays and they were super Saturdays and we would decorate all kinds of cupcakes and cakes and we would do all this kind of stuff together and that was fun I had five cake pans and I had a whole bunch of cake decorating tips and a whole bunch of rolling pins I had four rolling pins right when you go into my kitchen what you see is something that I was really emotionally attached to I was really connected to those super Saturdays because that was the highest version of myself at that time but then I discovered wait a second the kids have grown up and they've chosen other avenues of ways to spend their Saturdays and with other friends at the gate the times we spent together it didn't reduce those in any way it didn't mean that the kids love me any less or I love them any less it's just that our lives shifted a little bit and we moved and as we moved I had a whole bunch of rolling pins and a whole bunch of cake pans and a whole bunch of and I disconnected myself from the fun memories I still have all the pictures of the kids with like batter and flour and stuff all over the kitchen I mean it was awesome it was fun and to this day the kids I saw one of them yesterday the kids are memorable of those times it still brings us joy but I don't need to physically hang on to all that stuff and so as I've moved on and as I've discovered new purposes in my life I've been able then to let go of that stuff so how do we declutter our life and find a sense of purpose we have to be crystal clear because like I said we keep evolving we are humans we are evolving we are smarter than any AI tool you're going to find on the internet we have brains and we have you know the ability to function and reason and emote and all these things but the glory of it is we get to decide what that looks like for us and if we're just stuck and I'm overwhelmed and I don't know where to go then we're forever going to be stuck at one moment in time and then the whole evolution process of our lives where we find purpose we become the highest version of ourselves and where our lives actually become rich what is your life is it rich has nothing to do with money it has everything to do with the choices that you've made and if those choices are spending time with family because here's the thing people that have money what's the money for so I can go on vacation and spend more time with my family right okay why don't you just spend time with your family now right there are things you can do today that really wealthy rich people do because they have the money and the means and a lot of us can do that with no money and no means we can just take what we have right now and we can make the most of it right so that's my challenge for you can you take what you have today and make the most of it here's the thing it's going to be a challenge for you and the challenge is this if you're not a millionaire think in your mind write down on a piece of paper if I had a million dollars what would that look like to me what kind of person would I be if I had a million dollars and if you are a millionaire already then bump yourself up to a billion if you are a billionaire what does that look like for you what would you do differently would you sleep better at night would you hire a personal trainer would you exercise every day would you eat right would you have great conversations with people would they be meaningful conversations because your time is so valuable that if somebody gets in front of you when you actually allow that to happen you're going to have a meaningful conversation where you're going to put your smart phone down you're going to make eye contact what does that look like what does that look like what does that look like do you want to decide you get to do that and you can do that right now with no billion or no million dollars but like right now my husband and I we are billionaires in training and so every decision we make we say how would a billionaire make this decision right how would they make this decision and can we make that same decision right now with the resources that we have available to us changes and so our choices change but based on where we are right now in our lives with the information and the resource that we have right now what is the highest version of ourself for the decision that we're making can we do that today and oftentimes we'll turn down things that are not as important that are not as valuable to us as if we were living to the highest version of ourself and when you start living to the highest version of yourself every single day all of a sudden the stuff that you have is like why do I still have that that's crazy right that was three versions of me ago and we start getting rid of the clutter in our lives all right I'm gonna stop for today I've got a couple questions that I want to answer if you have a question add a cue to it this is what we're gonna call our lightning round we'll go fast and furious for for the next few minutes and I'll answer as many of your questions as I can I'm gonna scroll through here to see if we had any questions so far that I haven't answered and I want to make sure that we get these answered for you I just I have so many folks here that have just said hello hello and how you doing I just I'm just excited about this thank you you guys hi Debbie and Jennifer no I'm sorry Joni and Jennifer I'm jumping ahead of myself here and we've got Vivian and we have Mike and we have Regina will this be recorded yes this is recorded and you can find this on the hoarding world channel it is a YouTube forward slash at hoarding world and that's where all of the clutter corner sessions are going to live so yeah come back and revisit this and thank you for for saying that I appreciate that sin says hi Angela Brown cleaning love the channel awesome and seven deadly chins says hey everyone this is awesome Trina says I have a lot of tricks I play on myself I know I do too I love making excuses but at the end of the day I'm the one that has to suffer from the tricks that I play on myself and the excuses that I make no one else benefits or gets tricked by my own tricks except me and I'm the only one that pulls myself out of that and so I'm starting to find myself being more honest with myself and just saying hey is this the most authentic I can be Mike says do you offer a class on cleaning business I have a cleaning business before and I find out all my flaws yes if you go over to savvy cleaner.com we have an entire course we have several hours of live training per month where it's Q&A you just ask me and you show up on camera with me you ask me any questions so we do as much of that as possible that's on our cleaning channel Regini assist thank you for the amazing content this is a godsend I'm at a crossroad and overwhelmed with clutter and I do want to take this to the Nenito of chapter my into I think I think I'm I'm not sure here but yes I'm so glad that you said that because I want to make sure that we are moving forward and that you are able to reach the next chapter of your life because that's what this is all about like I said no one benefits from making these changes except you and especially the people that live in your home they're going to start noticing as you start putting out clutter boxes where you're starting to get rid of stuff your family members even if they're like totally reluctant they're like yeah I want to keep all my stuff they'll start adding stuff after a minute when this becomes your new norm living this way becomes your new norm your family will jump on board and they will start participating Mike she has a whole program called savvy cleaner yes thank you seven deadly chins that is that is where we we warehouse all of that and I'm looking here I do have a question the question here is what should I eat to stay motivated we have we have another program that we did last week that our our tip for this was stay away from gold colored foods which is all the processed foods like cereals and noodles and chicken nuggets and things like that that are just breaded and fried and french fries and chips and go to the things that are green those are things like avocados and apples and spinach and kale and broccoli and all of the things that are alive and so we have several different versions but stay away from processed foods eat whole foods if at all possible that's going to give you the energy to get through every day and as a house cleaner of 25 years out in the field every single day my energy was on the line I am my biggest asset in the cleaning business and so you want to eat things that have life to them not things that are already dead and processed and will store on a shelf for several years that's not going to be the highest version of yourself someone said my landlord got super mad at me for taking out so much trash and trying to declutter my apartment I don't know why but I'm sure the day will come when they will be grateful that you did that and that it didn't get hung out there at the house all right I'm looking looking on here do we have any more questions I've got lots and lots Mary Ann says is your live chat every Thursday this particular live chat is yes and by popular demand we came back to the Angela Brown cleaning today so we're streaming on a platform we normally don't stream on if you are not a member go over to youtube.com forward slash at hoarding world and that's where all of our clutter corner live sessions are we're going on a series for the next several weeks where we're going to be doing a deep dive into different elements of the unconscious areas of our our mind that are causing blocks on our stuff because in the end we want to live a life that has meaning but we also want to live a life with stuff that's important to us at the time I do not want you just to get rid of stuff to become a minimalist I've met lots of minimalists that sold their homes they moved into a van I mean they did all kind of crazy stuff and that did not bring them joy so if you don't resolve the root issues it doesn't matter what kind of stuff you have it's not going to bring you joy all right I've got time for one more question nope I don't I just have lots of people saying hi hi how you doing I've been following you for a long time I'm looking at expanding my cleaning business to help people with their hoarding challenges thank you Vicki it is people like you that are making a difference in the lives of people everywhere as they deal with and change their relationship with stuff alright so guys that's it for today thank you so much for joining me this was really fun I just I just had so much fun with you guys and I do want to encourage you to start finding your purpose because when you find your purpose the stuff that you have will be informed by that purpose and it will make getting rid of stuff in your life a whole lot easier all right that's it for today I will see you guys same place same time next week over on the hoarding world channel take care and have a great week