An Interview With Drew Gerber
Remove unnecessary things and behaviors.
Living in harmony with yourself by removing unnecessary things, behaviors, and patterns that poison our lives, e.g. junk food. It is worth replacing those things with something that will be more in line with your ‘inner self’.
We live in a time of great excess. We have access to fast fashion, fast food, and fast everything. But studies show that all of our “stuff” is not making us any happier. How can we simplify and focus on what’s important? How can we let go of all the clutter and excess and find true happiness? In this interview series, we are talking to coaches, mental health experts, and authors who share insights, stories, and personal anecdotes about “How Simplifying and Decluttering Your Life Can Make Us Happier.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Filip Kowalski.
Filip Kowalski is the Co-founder of Take3Breaths Guided Meditation App and CEO of Profil Software — a Python Development company that hires over 70 people. A company founder. He started business activities related to the provision of IT services in 2008. He is also a certificated meditation trainer.
In Profil Software he provides overall leadership and direction to the association’s business development, marketing, design, and finances.
He works with the organization’s COO to make wise decisions in terms of investments and employment. He also reviews financial and non-financial reports and analytics.
What’s more, he makes key strategic decisions regarding the final selection of entities with which the organization cooperates in terms of the partnership, whether it is the purchase or services offering.
Fascinated by the change that has taken place in advertising and marketing caused by the advent of search engines, a big fan of Search Engine Optimization and growth hacking, and interested in the possibilities offered by new technologies, especially Artificial Intelligence.
Jogger.
Believes that daily meditation helps to expand the mind’s capabilities.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?
It was mostly just being at the right time and in the right place. Anyway, I can’t say exactly if it was my skill that prevailed or a twist of fate that pushed my career in this direction.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
The most interesting thing is that my activity did not bring income for a long time. Even when I started to hire the first employees, debts multiplied for a long time, reaching tens of thousands of dollars at one point. The debts were mainly tax arrears, as I always preferred to pay people first and then pay the state. This situation began to change over time and I think that my stubborn pursuit of the goal and good decisions regarding the people I surrounded myself with at work and the time I put in the pursuance of my goals paid off as the right moment finally came and suddenly there was an increase in interest in IT services in Poland. We entered a time when the whole world started looking for good programmers.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I really appreciate working on the Take3Breaths app which is focused on Meditation in the workplace and workplace-oriented topics, helps to remove anxiety in the workplace, and in general, teaches people how to meditate and then helps them to maintain the habit of daily meditation. Besides that project, we work mainly on fintech, telemedicine, proptech, real estate, speech recognition, and artificial intelligence-based startups with clients all over the world, mostly we’ve got clients in Scandinavia and US.
Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on the topic of “How Simplifying and Decluttering Your Life Can Make You Happier”?
Let me start with the fact that before I became the owner of a profitable software company with almost 100 employees providing services to clients around the world, I was looking for something that would support me in the pursuit of my goal as the bumps and obstacles in the road were big and I was at the end of my rope many times over the years.
I started running. One time I just went out and started doing it and that’s how my daily ritual began. Slowly I started to feel better. I was less stressed but it still wasn’t enough; I still felt paralyzed by fear and it made it impossible for me to make rational decisions. In addition, my stress caused stress to others; I was unbearable at work and at home, and I could not stand the tension.
I continued to search for something to help me, I read a lot about the theory of happiness in general and how to stop the fear and control myself.
That’s how I found meditation, which gave me (and still gives me) the biggest results. Daily practice helps me in stressful situations, and the bigger the company, the more stressful situations and the more decisions to make with more and more importance.
Quite recently I took a meditation trainer course with Martin Hassall, CEO of Meditation in The Workplace company based in UK, London. I also started running meditation classes at work for employees.
Over time, I noticed that I was getting rid of all sorts of ballast like junk food, the wrong people, and even the amount of unnecessary things in the house. Generally, it all boils down to taking better care of and appreciating what we have in life, both small and large, and we can focus best on taking care of our affairs if we don’t have too much of them.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. We live in a time of excess. We have access to so much. But studies show that all of our “stuff” is not making us any happier. Can you articulate for our readers a few reasons why all of our possessions are not giving us happiness?
Yes, I agree with the above, and research clearly shows that neither stuff nor money makes us happier in the long run.
This is because people have wrong ideas about happiness, in other words, they define happiness incorrectly.
They believe in their definition, which is often repeated, and it is:
“I will be happy if…”. Meanwhile, it should read “If I’m happy then…”
Because happiness is a state that should be noticed; everyone, even if they have a lot of reasons to be unhappy, can find at least a few reasons to be happy. It can be the little things that are worth being grateful for. It is worth listing what we are grateful for and what small things make up for it. These are the little things that make us happy, and only when we are happy and appreciate the little things can we achieve more and more.
It doesn’t work the other way around.
On a broader societal level, how do you think this excessiveness may be harming our communities and society?
I generally see this misperception of luck as one of the mechanisms that can do a lot of harm to society through the ripple effect.
Since people want to be happy and they believe that to achieve this they need more and more of everything, and there is a limited amount of both goods and money; it is enough to understand that the rulers of a given community will strive to meet the needs of the people at all costs (otherwise they will be overthrown or exchanged for successive rulers in subsequent elections). In that case, the logical continuation of such a desire to possess will be to reach for someone else’s goods and money. This is, of course, a very global explanation, because we could talk about such effects on a smaller scale for a long time.
The irony of struggling with happiness in modern times is glaring. In many places in the world today, we have more than ever before in history. Yet despite this, so many people are unhappy. Why is simplifying a solution? How would simplifying help people to access happiness?
Unfortunately, if society continues to use the wrong definition of happiness, it will never be enough, because people will trust that the only way to get happiness is to multiply goods and money, etc.
By simplifying our lives by getting rid of unnecessary habits, unhealthy habits, toxic friends, and unnecessary things from home, we will make more space in our heads for appreciating what we have and taking care of it.
The constant expansion of the collection of goods and money which we are unable to control and which generates fear and dissatisfaction makes us depressed.
By correctly defining happiness, we are able to come to the conclusion that simplifying our lives can result in the fact that we will finally be happy.
Can you share some insights from your own experience? Where in your life have you transformed yourself from not having enough to finally experiencing enough? For example, many people feel they don’t have enough money. Yet, people define abundance differently, and often, those with the least money can feel the most abundant. Where in your health, wealth, or relationships have you transformed your life?
As I mentioned above, my life went on in such a way that despite debts, I continued my business, but it began to make no more sense. I felt that I couldn’t cope mentally and something was not right, I was trying hard and still, I had neither luck nor money. I started reading a lot and researching about the happiness and peace of mind I was missing. I started with daily running, and right after that, I found myself meditating. It is while using various meditation techniques, e.g. consisting of practicing appreciating the little things, expressing my gratitude, and listing the little simple things I’m grateful for in my life, I began to do better and better in all areas of my life. However, I can’t say that in the long run, more money means more happiness.
People, places, and things shape our lives. For example, your friends generate conversations that influence you. Where you live impacts what you eat and how you spend your time. The “things” in your life, like phones, technology, or books impact your recreation. Can you tell us a little about how people, places, and things in your own life impact your experience of “experiencing enough?”
Let me start with the fact that it is worth realizing how much time we have left.
This is a very simple exercise, it consists in taking a piece of paper and dividing it into as many squares as we think we have years of life left, thanks to which we will realize that we really have little time to achieve our goals, of course, you can go further and divide the years into months in order to then match the goals we want to achieve in those months, bearing in mind that sometimes it will take us more than one to achieve them.
I don’t think we have time to ‘experience enough’ of everything.
You should choose carefully, but also so as not to waste valuable time in the selection process. I strongly recommend balance here.
It is certainly the case that you should look for various challenges and goals outside of your place of residence, it is worth traveling, it is worth exploring to broaden your experiences and form your own opinion about what is important.
Underestimating our local environment, the times in which we find ourselves and, consequently, the inventions of our times are also not good, we should know well what surrounds us and what individual solutions our environment offers to us. Contrary to appearances, people around the world are very similar.
What advice would you give to younger people about “experiencing enough?”
I would advise a balance, at the beginning, it is worth finding the right authorities and trying to follow in their footsteps in order to find your unique path.
This is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience and research, can you share your “five ways we can simplify and declutter our lives to make us happier?”
1) Define “Happiness” correctly.
It is essential to consider what we define as “happiness”. The most common definition tells us that happiness comes from actions, but the truth is that first there is happiness and then various actions follow.
2) Remove unnecessary things and behaviors.
Living in harmony with yourself by removing unnecessary things, behaviors, and patterns that poison our lives, e.g. junk food. It is worth replacing those things with something that will be more in line with your ‘inner self’.
3) Start having a routine.
The important thing when it comes to maintaining happiness is having a routine. It can be something simple, such as drinking a warm glass of water with lemon in the morning, exercising, or practicing daily meditation.
4) Learn to meditate! it’s simple.
In the beginning, 10 min daily should be enough. This will help you to recognize your inner self. By training your mind to focus on the present moment, you’ll improve your concentration. It will consequently allow you to focus on the most important things in your life and avoid distractions. Meditating daily enhances self-awareness, which leads to a better understanding of an individual’s thoughts, emotions, and habits, which may help you identify and let go of unnecessary things. Emotional regulation is one of many benefits of meditation that will aid you in dealing with stress and frustration and in relaxing and clearing your mind, thus making you happier and letting you see more positive aspects of your life. These are only a few examples that come to mind.
5) Organize your work better.
Start using the app that will help you organize your work. It would be good if this application allowed you to organize your tasks into the TODO list, IN Progress for things that you are currently dealing with, and Done for tasks already completed. Give meaning and priorities to your tasks e.g. by adding a description or comments to tasks. Make sure you understand why you have to perform individual tasks, thanks to this the tedious, repetitive, and boring activities will start making sense and their implementation will bring you greater pleasure. Such applications are, for example, Notion or Trello, but there are a lot of them. Also take an interest in the Pomodoro technique, which allows you to achieve better results by making it easier to achieve the effect of deep work.
Tip of the day: Transfer point 5 to your private affairs and plan them better too.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
The movement that I would like to inspire would be for the correct definition of happiness and its understanding, thanks to which I believe that we can save nations and prevent wars, and above all, make people see what they have and be happy with it because it is a matter of understanding the mechanism of happiness.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best way would be to follow me on LinkedIn. That’s where I’m most active professionally.
Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!
About The Interviewer: For 30 years, Drew Gerber has been inspiring those who want to change the world. Drew is the CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a full-service PR agency lauded by PR Week and Good Morning America. Wasabi Publicity, Inc. is a global marketing company that supports industry leaders, change agents, unconventional thinkers, companies and organizations that strive to make a difference. Whether it’s branding, traditional PR or social media marketing, every campaign is instilled with passion, creativity and brilliance to powerfully tell their clients’ story and amplify their intentions in the world. Schedule a free consultation at WasabiPublicity.com/Choosing-Publicity.
Filip Kowalski Of Profil Software On How Simplifying & Decluttering Your Life Can Make You Happier was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.