In this episode, growth requires subtraction, not addition. I walk through a personal audit of my office and mindset, explaining why holding onto “past wins” (like old deal trophies or outdated quote walls) is actually a drag on future performance.
Key Takeaways:
- The 1-Year Rule: If you haven’t used an item (or a specific business idea) in 1 year, purge it immediately; it is mental drag.
- Visual Noise: Visual clutter creates cognitive load; clearing the workspace directly correlates to a clearer underwriting mind.
- Identity Audit: Question the origin of your beliefs—are they yours, or are you carrying “legacy software” from your parents or old mentors?
Listen to the full episode for a framework on how to declutter your mind to make room for 8-figure decisions.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to Get Serious at Serious Land Capital. funded over $6 million worth of deals and have industry leading 41 % operating margins. So today I really wanted to dive further into, you know, reflecting on and considering what ideas or lines of thinking might just be outdated and how to
you know, potentially move past some of those thoughts. Um, you know, know that sounds a little bit abstract here. I’m recording this around the holidays. Again, the vast majority of folks around the world, you know, the new year’s resolutions, et cetera, time for reflection. A number of folks might try to make changes in their life. Um, coming into the new year, a handful of folks are able to pull off any of those changes. Um, you know, to me resolutions, you know,
can be made and should be made, you as soon as you decide to commit to a new line of behavior habits, regardless of time of year. But, you know, I totally get the sentiment about, yeah, utilizing a new year to turn over a new leaf. And, you know, again, the holidays, again, kind of lend themselves to a bit more time for reflection. You know, work tends not to be as busy for most professions.
And so you can really kind of start maybe considering some ideas or knocking out some tasks that just get kicked down the road again and again and again. So to me, my wife and I are expecting another child over the next six months or so. And even though we’re fortunate to have a pretty sizable
Home to live in like any parent can relate or you have kids and just you know the space Just tends to get filled up and you know our three-year-old daughter I’ve just gotten her a whole bunch more stuff and there’s closets all over the place and you know including my Office here, which you can kind of see in the background You can’t see the whole thing, but you know kind of keep it fairly sparsely decorated You know more utilitarian here But you know the closet was just getting kind of
with stuff and I had a number of, you know, things just kind of hanging on the wall that I’ve had as part of my life for, you know, years, sometimes even decades. And so, you know, over this past week, yeah, I think I’m similar to other folks, maybe even more anal about it, just like, you know.
clutter just kind of bothers me here. Some people can just work in an area that’s just, you know, messes all over the place. To me, it’s just like mentally distracting to have even physical clutter around it. you know, eyes will just go to it and, you know, again, just find it, find it distracting here. And so like, I was kind of feeling even within the office, man, there’s just like, I know I have too much stuff here. What, I just need to take a moment or an hour to just
like take a look at this and what doesn’t belong anymore. and it’s not necessarily always purely like, okay, I’m not even going to use this item, but it’s like, okay, why am I even hanging some of this stuff up to like, do I even, is it still part of my thought process here? Like, is it even part of my identity anymore? And I think that ladder point is something that we don’t do often enough. and how, frequently, when we really,
you know, start to examine why we have certain thoughts or ideas about, you know, X topic, um, whatever, uh, how, um, you know, again, frequently those thoughts were just kind of placed into us by our environment or upbringing, parents or friends, family.
What have you just, you know, you as a younger version of yourself, that kind of, you know, ingested those type of thoughts, but, know, are they really pertinent to you anymore? like I think so many of us, so, you know, so many humans around the world, like we just kind of operate on autopilot or never really seek to investigate some of those thoughts and especially on a more routine basis. like maybe you’re.
You might examine things every five, 10 years, even 50 years down the line. But I think it serves all of us to kind of more frequently check in with this. Not necessarily an everyday thing. So you probably won’t get anything done. Like sometimes you just need to like autopilot on some of these.
Yeah, I mean, your office, if you’re sitting around kind of, what should I do with my office or clear us a coat? Like you’re not going to anything done. So it can’t be like a constant thing, but it should be fairly, fairly routine just to ensure you’re actually staying.
mentally abreast of where your mindset truly sits, like who is the true you at this point and what no longer belongs in your life or your brain. And so, you know, just to run you through some examples as I was going through my office here, you know, the most pertinent ones were just, you know, some of these things that I had up on the wall. And, you know, one that’s
I worked on, you close to 10 years ago, you know, coming out of medical school and this is, you know, out of all the different apartments and now home that I’ve lived in, like I’m just taking it across multiple moves here was like this larger quote wall. And, you know, a whole bunch of poster boards put together and, you know, just writing down all these various quotes from various books that I had read over the years.
you know, mostly books, some other types of quotes here and like it mostly got filled up and a lot of them were still relevant. like I still identified with them, even to this point in time, but. You know, I hadn’t updated or even wrote on that quote wall for years, like five plus years, probably, probably since I moved to Austin, like over, over seven years ago. and.
You know, my, you know, so often like you have some of these items within your physical space and like they just become part of the background and like you don’t even like, uh, see them anymore. And so like that was, um, you know, similar to what happened with this quote walls. It’s like, okay, it’s been there. I’ve had it for many years of my life. Um, you know, I worked on it for a while. Like there was some level of attachment to it. I’m like, yeah, there’s still key wisdom, but I rarely sat and like considered a lot of the quotes and some of them just like weren’t relevant anymore.
You know, me 10 years ago is just a different person. Um, and especially since it, you know, it wasn’t a whiteboard, like it couldn’t kind of consistently be re updated. Um, you know, it didn’t really fit in, um, to my, to my current mindset. And I think I was just holding onto it because it’s like, yeah, you put a lot of effort into it. Um, you know, my wife would sometimes find inspiration from, from looking at it.
It’s like, yeah, I’ve had it all this time. Like maybe sometimes I might find something on the quote wall it’s like worth looking at. But it’s like, you know, this is taking so much real estate space and visual real estate space, like right behind my workstation. Like why am I holding onto this? you know what? Hey, and we live now in like a digital infrastructure. Like I can just take a picture of this. could plug it into an AI too. And like, hey, you you can kind of.
keep this and even add it into like, you know, custom instructions for some project. if I need to pick out a quote, like AI, just, you know, grab it for me. And maybe that’ll even be more reliable. But like, okay, I took a picture of it, you know, banked it for it. It’s tying my life. If you’re familiar with like the Marie, Kondo, the Japanese author work of, yeah, how to like declutter your house and just, you know, it’s not quite treating, you know, things as people, but it’s more.
you know, just appreciating the value that they had brought in your life and like being willing to move on with them. So I find that helpful. It’s like, yes, that quote wall, served its purpose within my life. And, you know, what am I going to do later on with this thing? Like, are my kids going to want it? Probably not. Do I really want this in front of my workspace for like the next?
10, 20, 30, 40 years, like, is this gonna be with me until I die? And when you start asking yourselves these things, you know, a lot of the importance that you place on some of these objects, like it just starts to fall away. So, you know, I moved on from that and then I had, you know, some other things, even like some old photos from like class pictures in medical school. like, you know, a lot of these folks, like I’m never gonna see again. That was a different time in my life. Like I appreciate it.
have a lot of, you know, great memories from, from back then, or, you know, nostalgia is always kind of like, you know, memories without, the acute pain you were feeling back then. Like I like stuff like better now than it was in medical school. but it’s like, yeah, what, why am I hanging this up in my visual sphere? Like I even had, you know, some of these things that my parents had kept, you know, like, class photos from like eighth grade. It’s like, yeah, I can kind of see myself. I can remind myself of.
You where I came from, but you know, a whole bunch of folks like I’m not don’t live in my hometown anymore. Like tons of folks. I’m just, I’m never going to see again. It’s like, why are you hanging this up? now I have kids of my own and stuff. just kind of moving on or even, you know, some old sports fandom, like, you know, North Carolina tar heel, which like I’ll follow, but I’m a fair weather fans. Like, okay, what do you really need a banner or a pen and up here? You got this when you were like a teenager. so.
You know, maybe some of you can relate to that, but I do think it’s worth kind of taking just an inventory of why do I even have some of these things anymore? Or like maybe you’re just gifted some items from other folks and you kind of feel, yeah, it’s kind of a nice gesture. And then they just sit on a shelf or sit in your room for a while and like, why? Why am I really keeping this? Does it actually make any sense? And so, you know, I just took down all of that.
and now it’s just a lot more clean. and you can kind of see maybe in the background, if you’re seeing this on video, but like I’ll have, I have some of my, you know, daughter’s artwork in the background. like, you know what? This is the phase of the life that I’m in right now. Like if it, if it’s related to my family, you know, and any artwork that, you know, my daughter does, or, you know, son, when he’s born, or any like, you know, notes or.
you know, memorabilia or other photos, like with my wife or other family, like I’ll throw those up or, know, we have these white walls around, but it’s like, if my kids want to color on them, sure. Why not? like that to me, would just be, more exciting. And again, kind of fits the phase of the life that I’m in right now. Like that is a reminder of what I’m working, for day in and day out.
and just to have kind of continual reminders of my family. So that’s where I arrived at from that perspective. And also like I kind of like just the blankness of not having, you know, a lot of items from the past. Like I know Rick Rubin, the other famous music producer, like he just…
operates in an office where there’s like no member belay or anything like it’s all just future focused. Hey, what does the next day bring? Because he just doesn’t want to be reminded by the past. Like it’s all okay. What am I going to create now? Like I appreciate that type of mindset. And then within the closet, like, okay, just had all these, you know, I’m sure like most people can relate, especially in today’s, you know, where we just inundated with so many electronics, like so many old cords and
headphones that have just saved over the years and you know how quickly that technology just becomes outdated and it’s like, you know, I’ve saved this stuff up in, you know, multiple different bins for 10 plus years. And with how cheap some of this is, it’s like, okay, even if I need, you know, need one of these items, like I can probably just buy it for less than $10 on Amazon.
Like, it going to break the brain? No, none of this. But will it like save some of my sanity by just like getting rid of some clutter and just having a more clean workspace? Yes. So that was another piece where I’m just like, okay, just get rid of some of these items that you just don’t need. And I generally try to have a rule and like other parts of the house too. It’s like, okay, you almost have a mental timer going on. And again, it’s easier to do this at the end of the year of if I don’t use
something within a year, I’m probably never going to use it. Like that’s a, I think a helpful framework for like almost anything physical that you have within your house. And I know a ton of people will have like storage. mean, this is the whole self storage industry, right? It’s like saving stuff just in case you need it. When in reality, like more than likely you’re not ever going to need that. So.
Yeah. No judgment for folks that are using self storage or maybe you have like bigger items or different recreational gear or something. But I, to me, that would be a massive warning sign personally, if I’m getting like self storage, just to, you know, basically keep my own junk that I’m never going to use again. So I would just rather get it out of the house. And that’s something that’s kind of nice in Texas as well too, is like pretty much no homes have basements, at least in central Texas, cause it’s just so rocky. and so.
Like you lose all of that extra storage space that a lot of it, you when we grew up in the Midwest and had, you know, crawl spaces and, you know, basement, you’re to shove more stuff like in Texas, since you don’t have the bit, like you just have to be more efficient with your space utilization. And, know, more of your clutter is in your face there. So I kind of appreciate that as well. So hopefully that gives you some.
some ideas on, you know, what maybe what can you consider here while we, you know, still going into the holidays here, maybe you hear this later on. And, you know, again, what kind of ideas are you keeping? And, know, who influenced you to even have these ideas in in the first place? Like, who’s gifting you some of these things like, you know, my parents or family, like they
tend to just hoard more stuff. Like I grew up in a household where there was just a lot more trinkets and physical items and I don’t really embrace that. So it’s like if I’m being gifted, as much as I love my parents and family and so forth, do I need to take in the items that they’re giving me or giving me my wife or my kid or can I just like…
you know, accept them with gratitude, but then, you know, just, you know, kind of remove them or recycle them, whatever, give them away. because like we, we just have a different mindset about that. So, again, not something that’s always top of mind here for a lot of folks, but I think it would serve us all well to kind of have these routine check-ins like, all right, what ideas do I need to reconsider here?
Where am I at personally now? What phase of my life am I in? And if I really want to get to the next level, am I holding on to things unnecessarily? Or, you know, just kind of accepting existing thoughts as just being part of my identity when in reality, like they’ve just faded and are no longer where you want to be. So something to keep in mind, food for thought.
subscribe and share everybody. Again, if you got land deals, SeriousLand.Capital, 50K purchase price, looking forward to next time. Take care.
