Norbert Soski Of Straight-Up Soulutions On How Simplifying & Decluttering Your Life Can Make You Happier
An Interview With Drew Gerber
Admit you need to declutter. As with any issue in your life, you need to first come to terms that there is something that needs changing. In this case, it is the over accumulation and disorganizing of stuff. The theme of this effort is — clear space, clear mind. Clutter is physical chaos, that may affect your mind’s ability to focus or places in your house you want to avoid.
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 Norbert Soski.
Norbert Soski graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is currently a Senior Avionics Engineer with Blue Origin and he has also worked at the following commercial, industrial, and aerospace companies: Renau Electronic Laboratories, Moog Space and Defense, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Teledyne Systems Company, Delco Systems Operations, and Mattel Toys/Electronics Division. In 2019 he authored his book — ONLY HUMAN: Guide to our internal Human Operating System (iHOS) and Achieving a Better Life; integrating engineering methods with spiritually. It is a personal development user’s manual for understanding our human nature.
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?
My career decision to be an engineer began many years ago when I was just five years old. My mother would say to me, that I was going to grow up to be an engineer; and not wanting to disappoint my mother I did. What really motivated my mother to suggest that was that she constantly observed my strong curiosity regarding how all things worked. Nothing was safe around the family house or car from me taking everything apart, from the car radio to my sister’s doll house. I even made a lot of my own toys, which included a toy tank and many soapbox cars that I would ride down the hills of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
My new parallel career as an author took a whole different path. Simplifying one’s life was the starting motivation for writing my book — ONLY HUMAN. Years back, I was having weekly lunchtime conversations with my good friend, David (OBM). We were talking about how to contain all the aspects of our life inside a 2-inch attaché case. The idea was about simplifying our life’s issues so they could all fit (figuratively) into something small enough we could carry around with us. All these discussions always led us to the same basic conclusion — “it’s just human nature.”
My engineering thinking made me realized then, that I needed to first take apart, understand, and address this very basic issue of human nature before addressing all the other simplification issues. What was needed was an operating/user’s manual for our life. In addition to my career as an engineer, being a student of spirituality and personal growth for over 30 years helped shape this new approach to improving the lives of others. This whole idea developed into ONLY HUMAN and the internal Human Operating System (iHOS) as a way of modeling our human nature.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
Back on July 16, 1969, when I was just a kid, I watched humans (Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin) go and land on the Moon for the first time on Apollo 11. An exciting first for humanity. Back then I was just a spectator of this awesome event.
Presently, when I worked at Rocketdyne I had various design and management roles in developing much of the electrical portions of the entire Electrical Power System for the International Space Station (ISS). Then as Lead Technical Engineering Manager, I led the design and development of the first two Rocket Engine Controllers at Rocketdyne on the RS-68 and J-2X rocket engine programs.
And when NASA was developing the Space Launch System (SLS) program to go back to the Moon, Rocketdyne utilized portions of both the RS-68 and J-2X Rocket Engine Controllers to upgrade the RS-25 engines (the main engines from the retired Space Shuttle program). Four upgraded RS-25 engines are used on the booster stage of the SLS (with the highest payload capacity of any rocket in operational service). So, on November 16, 2022 on the NASA SLS Artemis I program, I had four Rocket Engine Controllers help power the SLS rocket back to the Moon.
I am now contributing to humans going back to the Moon. What an amazing turn of events in my career and life.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I am working on a couple of different projects related to my book — ONLY HUMAN. The first one is a companion workbook. Within many chapters of ONLY HUMAN there are Exercise Breaks. The purpose of the workbook is to help facilitate those Exercise Breaks; bring more clarity and focus to each, by giving the reader more information, along with place and space to explore and write down their responses. The purpose of the Exercise Breaks is to help the reader interact with and get more results from the content and information within each chapter of ONLY HUMAN.
The other project is I have started writing a series of follow up books that each will focus on improving specific different aspects of our lives. These include our family life, business and work environments, and how our decision-making process affects our involvement in understanding economics and government. The book series is titled “Putting Soul into… (the specific aspect): How our internal Human Operating System (iHOS) Affects the Important Decisions We Make.” The purpose of the book series is to take the details of the internal Human Operating System (iHOS) and apply it directly to these specific aspects so that it is very clear how to create life improvements in each of these areas.
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”?
I have been a student of personal development and improvement for over 30 years and a student of spirituality for over 20 years. These subjects have become my passion over the years; always looking to grow and be better. Driven by my mantra of “It is more important to do right than being right.” That combined with my 100% succuss rate of producing products for the aerospace industry for over 30 years in both a design and management capacity, I have learned and utilized a lot of human interaction skills. Some of which were learned through making mistakes.
When writing ONLY HUMAN, over a lengthy six-year period, all my learned skills and experiences came to bear on the problem of trying to understand the details and complexities of our human nature — the underlining motivations of all we do. What I was looking for was a unique and simple way to explain our behavior. As I mentioned earlier, simplifying one’s life was the starting motivation for writing — ONLY HUMAN and how to contain all the aspects of our life inside something small enough we could carry around with us.
I defined the internal Human Operating System (iHOS) as a way of modeling our human nature. Within the details of the internal Human Operating System (iHOS), I address our motivations to accumulate both physical stuff and emotion baggage and the need to reduce what we have already accumulated and the methods to avoid future accumulation. At the conclusion of ONLY HUMAN, I present 12 Action Steps for bettering your life and Action Step 5 is “I will Simplify My Life.” And through the implementation of these Action Steps, we begin the journey toward happiness and a better life.
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?
As I explain in much detail in ONLY HUMAN, the internal Human Operating System (iHOS) is composed of two opposing features. I call them the Primitive Soul and the Angelic Soul, each of which have differing sets of motivations that drive us. One set of motivations are what drive us to accumulate stuff and another set of motivations lead us on a path to happiness. Having physical stuff represents success to the Primitive Soul and produces short-term happiness. Like buying the new house or that expense sports car. Our physical stuff can also be in the form of physical beauty, how we look, how beautiful our house and car look. Primitive Soul motivations also drives us to accumulate emotional baggage, in the form of guilt or our belief systems. Both these Primitive Soul motivations are barriers to our pathway to long-term happiness.
Our Angelic Soul motivates us in our need for a life’s purpose and human relationships. The less fulfilled the Angelic Soul is in these areas the more the Primitive Soul motivations will dominate our daily actions and we will continue to accumulate much more physical stuff and emotional baggage. The Angelic Soul motivations have little regard for physical stuff. It has a greater motivation for developing purpose and relationships. These Angelic Soul motivations lead to long-term and stable happiness. The bottom line is that our cluttered possessions do not create long-term or stable happiness, only fulfilling purposes and relationships do.
On a broader societal level, how do you think this excessiveness may be harming our communities and society?
Absolutely, our country is being slowly destroyed by our own prosperity. Not that any of the things we acquire are intrinsically bad, but that we are losing sight of the value of all this stuff. We have become spoiled by this prosperity. We have come to expect that all this stuff is something we deserve, a birthright, instead of something we earn, by performing the right actions and accomplishing certain deeds. Our priority has become on what we have and we now measure success by what we have verses what we have accomplished. We believe that people cannot live without it or be happy unless they possess all this stuff and that we need to artificially raise everyone to the same arbitrary level or they cannot be happy. We have equated physical stuff with happiness and we therefore cannot believe that poor people can be happy.
In addition, volunteerism with community organizations and attendance at all religious events are down all over this country. People have become so involved in their own gratification, entertainment, and personal fulfillment that we are ignoring our greater purpose of personal commitment to bettering the Real World around us. And when something is needed within the community, we then expect someone else to care for the needy, like the government, because we do not have the time nor interest in doing so.
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?
Clutter is the overwhelming feeling from too much “stuff.” So, the simple answer is to unpack, dust off, clear out the clutter, and lighten the load. The challenge is how to do that. Simplification itself does not create happiness, but the process of decluttering our physical and emotional life reveals and eliminates the obstacles that lead to happiness. There are layers to this simplification undertaking:
- There are physical stuff and emotional baggage that need decluttering.
- Getting to the motivational source of all this accumulated clutter is key to reducing current and future clutter.
- Elimination of clutter creates space and opportunity for happiness producing “stuff” to come into our life.
Happiness is an elusive target. Everyone wants it, but long-term achievement is challenging to most. Within our internal Human Operating System (iHOS) one strong motivation is to acquire “stuff,” as I describe in ONLY HUMAN, the Prosperity Progression. Moving up the Prosperity Progression is a measure of our physical success. If followed correctly, moving up the Prosperity Progression leads to the successful acquisition of “stuff.” But many people erroneously jump up the curve by just accumulating “stuff,” thereby only creating the illusion of success. And then, we cannot let go of all this “stuff” because all this “stuff” is significant to us. It represents our physical success. Accumulation of physical “stuff” helps with our short-term happiness.
Many factors contribute to our lack of happiness and emotional baggage is the other. Our emotional baggage is the accumulation of negative mental clutter. And the greatest emotional baggage of them all is guilt. Guilt laden baggage can affect us in the present, but most certainly in the future. Guilt feelings pop up when something we see, hear, or do brings back the guilt event from the past and it does not go away. Depending on our Primitive Soul motivated actions or inactions, we keep accumulating this guilt events baggage.
What is important for happiness is our relationships and our life’s purpose. Focusing on these will bring light to all the unnecessary “stuff” we have accumulated in our life and then we can discard them. The key to simplification and decluttering is finding the optimal balance — not too little and not too much. Balance versus sliding to the extremes. Focus on your legacy, what you have done for others, accomplished for yourself, or created in the Real World; this “stuff” cannot be taken away from you nor create clutter. Do not focus on what you own or possess, presently or in the future. Let go of what you have and stop accumulating more.
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?
I have joked around for years, saying “I knew I was making enough money when my wife stop complaining about how little money was in our checking account.” Over the years my life has been a steady transformation of relationships, health, and wealth. In my younger years, my family would point out to me how little respect I had for money. I got my own place instead of living at home. I bought a brand-new sports car. And I did a lot of snow skiing.
All that changed after I got married and now, the money I earned is our money. The transition — life became our life; with complete respect for our relationship over all other stuff. We live a simple life. It is not about showing off with what we own, not the cars we drive, the house we live in, or the clothes we wear. I do not care how others see our life style, but how we contribute to our family, friends, and community.
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?”
Once many years ago, I either heard or read somewhere that if you want to make it big, it is important that you hang out with the right people and that their influence will help you achieve what you want. So, wanting to achieve greater wealth in my life and have better stuff, my wife and I started hanging out with a wealthier, influencing group of people. After a while, I started realizing what I really missed was hanging out with our old friends. The people with whom we shared common interests and common values. The wealth of money was not as important as the wealth of friendship.
What advice would you give to younger people about “experiencing enough?”
- Focus on the important things in life. Accumulate good memories and accomplishments. Stuff, that when you look back will bring you memories of good times, pride, tears, and much joy.
- No matter how much or how little stuff you accumulate, your greatest happiness will come when you share your stuff with your relationships.
- Spend your time and resources on physically and emotionally connecting with others in your life.
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?”
It is one thing to declutter and organize your life, it is another to know why. There are two forms of clutter in your life — physical stuff and emotional baggage. To get it right, simplifying and decluttering is a process. You cannot just address the “how” to declutter and simplify your life, but you need to include the “why.” There is much written on the how to declutter (organizing and simplifying), but you need to also focus on the why. Let us start by defining our terms:
- Clutter is the accumulation of too much unneeded physical stuff. Not unwanted stuff. You clearly wanted it or you would not have saved it; this is the why. And your clutter has resulted from both physical and emotional motivations.
- Simplification is the reduction of clutter (more clear and useable space), not just the reorganizing of it (putting your stuff into labeled storage bins).
Five suggestions you can do to simplify and declutter your life and bring more happiness:
- Admit you need to declutter. As with any issue in your life, you need to first come to terms that there is something that needs changing. In this case, it is the over accumulation and disorganizing of stuff. The theme of this effort is — clear space, clear mind. Clutter is physical chaos, that may affect your mind’s ability to focus or places in your house you want to avoid.
- Identify and toss. Look around your spaces are all your spaces cluttered or just certain areas. Look at the walls, floors, shelves, and closets are they organized clutter or disorganized clutter. Do you identify with your clutter? All the stuff you hold onto are for various reasons. My biggest clutter comes from books, reuse items, and nostalgia. Today it is so much easier to throw away sentimental things, just take a picture of it and save it in a special folder on your cell phone or computer. That will take up way less physical space. Decluttering your computer is a whole other issue.
- Space verses quantity of stuff. Organizing — do not just spend money to store your clutter. Look around and reduce your clutter to fit the space within your home and do not rent extra space.
- Everything has a place — Everything in its place. It is one thing to reduce and organize and create a place for everything, but you need to maintain the organization by putting everything away where it belongs when you are finished with it. Put stuff where it belongs as soon as you are done using it and avoid needing to touch them multiple times to get them back in their place or having to search the house when you need it. It takes less effort to put stuff in the right place the first time.
- Universe abhors a vacuum. Now that you went through the effort to declutter and simplify, others will “help” you to refill your space. Learn to say “no.” Learn to say “no” to others and to yourself. Understand your “why” when it comes to saving stuff. This is the important part to staying organized and decluttered into the future.
Extra credit — remember, your personal success is not measured by your accumulated stuff. Reward yourself with a meaningful and beautiful experience, not a new pair of shoes. Relationships and purpose — focus on what you do and accomplish, not on what you have and accumulated.
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. 🙂
I am looking for people who are honestly open with themselves and who care about improving their lives and the lives of the people in their world. My goal is to have people live less complicated, more simple lives where they care more for the others around them then the stuff they own or their opinions of the world. I want to help bring people’s lives into balance by their deeper understanding of our human nature. A movement of deep understanding of our internal Human Operating System (iHOS).
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Readers can find my blogs and all my other posts at www.NorbertSoski.com or follow me on: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norbert-soski-16246318/
https://www.facebook.com/NorbertSoskiAuthor
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.
Norbert Soski Of Straight-Up Soulutions On How Simplifying & Decluttering Your Life Can Make You… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.