144 Year Four Intro, New Theme

We map out a year to declutter life and leadership, moving from neuroscience-backed habit change to practical workplace cleanup, stronger boundaries, and a disciplined pursuit of less. Four books guide the path: Dr. Caroline Leaf, Marie Kondo at work, Mel Robbins, and Greg McKeown.

• theme of the year set as decluttering life across mind, work, relationships, priorities
• recap of past arcs from happiness to facing obstacles
• why we start with neuroscience and long-term habit formation
• introduction to Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and the five-step approach
• workplace clutter, meeting hygiene, email and file systems
• relationships, boundaries and the Let Them mindset
• essentialism as the filter for fewer, better commitments
• invitations for coaching, cohorts and deeper book clubs
• announcement of the Substack and how to join

Join our Substack: woyb.substack.com. Discovery calls are free, and links to book deals are in the show notes.

Chapters

• 2:26 New Year And Recording Rhythm
• 4:01 Rethinking Goals And Happiness Science
• 5:28 Evolving The Show’s Structure
• 7:46 From Happiness To Facing Problems
• 11:05 Why Decluttering Life Is The Theme
• 13:12 Memory, Feelings, And Lasting Change
• 14:55 Book One: Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess
• 16:39 Starting With Neuroscience And Method
• 19:12 Coaching, Cohorts, And Learning Offers
• 20:56 Book Two: Joy At Work
• 22:53 Book Three: The Let Them Theory
• 24:13 Book Four: Essentialism And Focus
• 25:30 Substack Launch And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:17

Welcome to What's on Your Bookshelf, a life and leadership podcast where we live out loud the pages of the books that are on our shelves. With your host, Denise Russo and Sam Powell.

SPEAKER_01: 1:29

Hello, everyone. Welcome back and happy new year. It's another episode of What's on Your Bookshelf. This is a Life and Leadership podcast where we're living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. And we are at the top of the year with a new episode to share with you what the theme of the year is. But before we get started, I just have to say, Sam, happy new year. I'm so happy to be here with you again. Happy New Year.

SPEAKER_02: 1:58

I am too. This is um, I was thinking about it last year. We were we had to pre-record really far in advance because I was on maternity leave at the end of 2024, I guess. Right. Oh gosh, the years. Uh 2024. And we recorded all of the end of the year, like October through the end of the year and the beginning of the year, so that I could take a nice cushioned maternity break. And um, so it's nice to be like this year, we're much close, like this year we're more on a regular schedule of recording kind of just before the episode comes out. And so it's sort of nice. Like last year was great, and I needed that, obviously. But this year is nice to be just a little more connected at the the time of year and really thinking about like what do we want this new year to be? And it made me think about a couple years ago when we were doing so not last year, but the year before, when we were doing our year of happiness. And I think about that book at the beginning of every year because she laid out our Sonia uh Lubomirsky in the uh how of happiness, she laid out what kind of goals make us happiest. And so I remember going to networking events at the beginning of that year as we were reading that and telling people, you know, if you want to, you know, if you want goals that are really do make you happier, like if you want these New Year's resolutions to really increase the happiness in your life, like there's certain types of goals you should set. And so I was actually just pulling those up and thinking about them. And so it's nice now to be like sitting here thinking about this year at the right time because we didn't we just didn't get to do that last year with uh with the baby. So uh yeah, I'm just so excited to be here. And I can't believe this is what year four are we on? Isn't that weird?

SPEAKER_01: 3:52

Yeah, yeah, it just feels like it's gone fast because I love reading with you and then sharing how we are interpreting what we've read. And I hope that the same happens for the people that are listening in today. And we didn't originally start our show with really a structure or a plan. It was sort of like, you know, Scott said, people just want to know what's on your bookshelf, and they want to know what are you reading, what do you recommend? And so we we started that way. We started with some of my favorite books, and it felt like it started feeling like a commercial because we were trying to do one book an episode, and we weren't getting any royalties or kickbacks or anything like that from the authors, nor do we expect that, but I didn't feel like we were learning. It was sort of like we were just shoving information, and I saw that first year all kinds of posts about, you know, read a hundred books in a month, and it was really about book summaries, which I think you know, you could get a good book summary just like you could. I like watching the previews at the movies before the movie comes out, but it isn't the same as the movie, you but when you do watch the movie, the preview kind of tells the whole story of the movie in hindsight, but you still want to see the whole thing, and so what we ended up doing when when you jumped in, which is also a fun time because Andy was having some changes at work, he also has a new baby. Well, not anymore new, but having some changes, and so we decided, well, it wasn't even decided. We said, Sam, you know, can you help us with some of the behind the scenes? And then said, Hey, do you want to be on the on the front side of it? And we didn't know then that we would be now here, having had hundreds of episodes together now, yeah, with having a little bit more structure too. So you were really the one that came up with that, and and it was probably organic because the first year that we had a structure, it was being built while it was happening. And then at the end of that year, we you were so good. You're so good at systems and structures, and you were able to say, well, you know what? When this was really about this, and this next year, what do you really want? And I think that was when I said, I just want to be happy. And then we came up with those books that happened to be on my shelf about happiness, and then the next year after that, we had a really good meeting together about how to structure how to go from happiness to living out loud in spite of circumstances in life. And so I think that now is a great time for you to share some of the magic of how you do that and then set the stage for what we're going to do this year because I am really excited about the books for this year. I am too.

SPEAKER_02: 6:38

And yeah, I don't know. This is one of those things where it's like you can never explain how you do stuff really, right? Like, I don't know. This is just me connecting death sort of comes naturally to me. But um, I think I I just like pattern recognition, probably why I have a math degree, right? Like I just like, I just like that. So, you know, when we as you know, as we've gone on this journey, we've talked, we talk about, we take a break and we talk about this, I think, every year, right? At the especially at the beginning of the year, of like how we're doing things. But yeah, I I do remember you said that those exact words. I was like, well, what do you think people want next year? And you're like, I don't know about everybody, but I just want to be happy. And I was like, well, then let's let's do that then, right? There's got to be books. And then you were like, here's 50 I have on my shelf about happiness. And we narrowed it down to four because you're right. We wanted, you know, I think you and I both took that um that that part of the Coach Wooden book about drinking deeply from books very seriously, because we realized as we were doing that book, that when you get to read it and talk about it and listen to it and try to live it, you take the lessons in in such a different way. Like I'm someone who does read a lot of books in a year, but these are the ones that become part of who I am and how I show up because we're really, really doing that in in like I think writing them onto our souls as we're, you know, as we're experiencing them. And I think people are doing that with us too, which is what I love about doing this with you. And, you know, so when we thought about that happiness concept, it was like, well, what comes after happiness? It's like, well, there's so problems in the world, right? Like, it's not like just because we know how to get to happy doesn't mean reality doesn't exist. It doesn't mean that like we still don't have problems. And it's like, well, then let's explore that. Like, let's think about how do you overcome, how do you work with, how do you work through the problems in your life so that you can have that chance at implementing the things that really do make you happy and living in that way. And I I loved last year's exploration. I kind of didn't know where it would go. And I was a little afraid, right? Being the ultimate like optimist that I am, I was a little afraid it would get kind of negative, you know, throughout the year. But I don't think it ever took that turn, right? I think to me, it felt really empowered as we went through the year about like, oh yeah, I can face this that can really like deepen my existence and and really, I think help me get in tune with how to not view my problems as things to get rid of, but how to use them as part of the journey, right? That the obstacle is the way type of a mindset and getting out of my own way in, you know, in that space, right? And and things like that. So I felt like that arc really just made a lot of sense for us, right? Because we're just thinking about what do we want, right? And how do life work and how to, you know, how do how do people show up in that. And I think that, you know, we sat down and we talked about that this year as we were planning and thinking about what is what really comes after. Okay, I know how to get to happy, I know how to work with my problems and you know, take them as the things I need them to be and and move forward. So then what's next, right? What is what's still left? And the thing that you, you know, you always talk about Marie Kondo's book about, you know, cleaning up cleaning up your life and all this kind of stuff. We always say we're gonna do it. And spoiler alert, we're not doing it again this year. So you're gonna have to read that one on your own if you haven't. Um, but it's the um, but there's something to that concept, right? That that you you talk about all the time. And you and I off-camera often talk about like, oh my gosh, you should see what's over here where you can't see, right? Right here looks so clean and nice. Over there is 10 piles of laundry and things that I don't know how to categorize or where to put in my life, right? So we talk about that all the time. And it's like, okay, if you know how to approach happiness and you know how to approach your problems, there's life is still messy, right? Life is still just not that clean. It's not so clear-cut as like, I'm gonna work towards happiness. I'm gonna, you know, work with my problems and make the obstacle the way. It's just, it's not that clean, right? And so that's really where we landed on this year of like how to declutter your life, how to tackle kind of the messes in your life that get in the way, right? And it's not maybe the huge problems that we tackled last year. These are all those little micro things that get in our way, right? Our thought patterns, um, you know, work itself, right? And work is kind of a big rock, but it's the little things at work, right? And what to do there. And it's our relationships with other people. And it's, you know, really thinking about at the end of the day, what is essential for me to work on, right? What is the things that I need to be focusing on? And so that's, you know, talking, talking through that together is sort of where we came up with our list of books for this year that all sort of focus around how to clean up those messes in our life in a way that's practical, in a way that works, in a way that's tangible, in a way that enriches your life on the other side. And, you know, same thing as last year, same thing as the year before. You're gonna go from uh, I I get how to be happy, I get how to tackle problems, but like let's get deep. Let's really, really figure out the pieces of it that are gonna make your life better by the end of the year. And so that's what I'm hoping for us as we go go through the books and go through this year. But yeah, I don't know. That's that's my that's my view on how the last few years have gone and how we've how we're how we've gotten to where we are today and how we chose the four books for this year that we did.

SPEAKER_01: 12:39

I love how you described all of that. And one of the things that I was taking away from how you were sharing is we started the podcast wanting to talk about leadership books and business books, and truly that is what these books are. They're about how to be better at work, but they're really about how to be better at life. And one of the things that I really spent a lot of time thinking about and processing when I was leading leadership development teams at work was that it couldn't just be manager training. It had to be about self-development and that if you develop yourself, there was a book we did with Zach that I don't think that those episodes have really come out yet, uh, that he's doing on his special edition series for what's on your bookshelf. But but there's one specific book that talks about the the idea that if you don't focus on yourself first, you really can't lead others well. And John Maxwell talks about this all the time as well. And those are all leadership books. So as we got to the end of last year when we were doing the four agreements, the four agreements is not known as a business leadership development book. And yet, when we got to the end, I thought to myself, you know, every leader needs to read that book and listen to our episodes and figure out how to live out loud, those four simple but yet not really applied principles of life. So when we got ready to talk about these books that we'll introduce here in a moment, it really was for me going back to the beginning of the year where when I think about the story from The Obstacle is the way where the guy was moving the boulder. And really, if you haven't read that book, and if you haven't gone through those episodes with us and you're listening to this maybe for the first time, or you haven't listened in a long time, or you missed that series, I really want to encourage you to go back to any of the episodes. But in that particular episode or series, one of the things that struck me after we finished the book, not while we were even in the middle of it, was that it was also about the fact that the guy that pushed the boulder in the first parable, it wasn't that he wasn't focused on the other people. Like maybe he did want to help his friends and neighbors, but he didn't let what they didn't do stop him from doing what he could do. And so he did it anyway. And that's what we're going to find, especially in the third book, I think, that we'll have for this year. And so for me, the first book that we'll talk about here in just a moment is something that's been on my shelf for a while. The author of that book is somebody I heard speak at a John Maxwell conference. And I loved her session, but yet I really can't tell you very much of what the session was about, other than I remember loving it, which that's just the way life is. We remember 20% max of things that happen. So if you're a leader, you're gonna remember 20% of a conversation or a presentation or or your year. Like here we are in January. I bet if we challenged any one of you to think about 365 days of last year, if you could remember 20% of those, it would be really a lot.

SPEAKER_02: 15:56

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's got that reminds me of the like classic My Angelou quote, right? Of like, you don't remember how people like what people did or what they said, right? Like she says it much more eloquently, but you remember how they made you feel, right? And I think that that's that like you don't remember what this author said in the speech, but you know how she made you feel afterwards. And that, you know, I think that that's it, is that we take those big feelings, and that's that's what we end up categorizing more often than not, right? Like I can't remember every single thing, you know, my childhood best friend and I ever did or said to each other. I probably don't even remember a drop in the ocean of it, actually. But I remember how I felt when I was with them, right? I remember, you know, the emotions that they evoked in me, and I have fondness for that, right? And um, you know, and I think that that's yeah, that's a lot of that that's just what that made me think of when you're talking about about that. And you're right. And I think this is that time of year of reflection, right? Like I just did big recaps of 2025 and thinking about that. And it was really hard to think all the way back, right? Because I I had a coach challenge me on like, let's think back about what are all the things that you're proud of for this year, what are the big things that you did? And I at first I had three big things written down, like I've survived the year on no sleep that was really interrupted, right? But as I sat there and thought about it, as I gave myself more time, the list became long, like I ran out of space by the end of the by the end of the exercise because yeah, it takes it's hard to remember all of that. It's hard to think about all of that. But I, you know, I think that, like you said, that's just sort of how life works.

SPEAKER_01: 17:29

Well, there's one thing I remembered from this author that we'll introduce here in just a moment, since we're almost out of time, and we want to make sure you have the opportunity to get these books before we actually go through the series. One thing this author said was that most people think it takes 21 days to create a habit. That we've heard this a lot in our lives and in business or in anything. It takes 21 days to create a habit. And so you set out in January to have a New Year's resolution. Well, we know from a lot of facts and research and science that most people drop their habits. Like they sign up for a gym membership in January, and by February the gyms are empty again. 21 days later, it just doesn't stick. And so she said that it actually takes almost three months to create and institute habitual processes. In other words, you might start a thing you want to call a habit, but even with what we know from atomic habits, you have to repeat things until they go into your subconscious to become a natural state for you. And so that's the one thing that I remembered that she taught us at that John Maxwell conference was about how if you want to create lasting change in your life, it's not gonna happen overnight and it's not gonna happen in 21 days. So this first book, we are going to take several weeks to go deep into and think about how we can live it out loud. And I guess for our drum roll, the first book for 2026 is a book by Dr. Caroline Leaf called Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess. It's five simple scientifically proven steps to reduce anxiety, stress, and toxic thinking. When we started to Don't we all need that right now?

SPEAKER_02: 19:20

It's just five simple. Yeah, this is like this is what I think. This theme, people are gonna be like, yeah, yeah, I need I need that. Because as soon as we start talking about it, and you like because this is a book from your shelf, and I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna need to know all those steps and all the stuff behind it. So yeah, I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01: 19:38

I am in a question if it's simple. She says it's five simple, but it's scientifically proven. So, so uh so let's talk just maybe briefly, Sam, about how this book sort of images the way we started the year of happiness in the way we set up the way these next books come after this one.

SPEAKER_02: 19:57

Yeah, and that that's but that's a great point, and it's probably really important. So when we did our year of happiness, we started with the science, the neuroscience behind and the research behind happiness, right? We really wanted to ground ourselves in what do the studies say, what do the facts say before getting into, you know, the non-scientific theories that other people have, right? You know, getting out on more thoughts and picking up a couple of popular books along the way. And so we did the same thing here. This book that we're starting with by Dr. Leaf is grounded and based in the neuroscience of, you know, kind of uncluttering your brain, right? She really, like, this is where we're really gonna talk about how how you think about things becomes the actual like physical structure of your brain and how and what the research is telling us in that. So again, like we're gonna start the year very grounded in research and in that scientific fact that we have. And um I think that that's a good way to start, especially in the world of the internet, right? Where like you can go Google anything and you're gonna find any information you want, right? You can you can reaffirm any belief that you want out there in the world, but this is really starting the year grounded in what does it research tell us before we then move into um other topics a little more popular like a little bit of pop culture type stuff as we go. So yeah, I think that that is important because I really did like how the year of happiness flowed because of, you know, because of that that start. And so this is this is going to have a similar vibe to it, which I I'm really excited for. And I'm excited for the audience, like for those of you listening, because The How of Happiness is one of my favorite books. It was hard to read because it was so research-based. I don't think this one's quite as difficult to read, but uh it's nice to have this conversation with us um rather than maybe having to uh completely like immerse yourself in all of it. It's better if you follow along I strongly encourage you to and it is a good way to kind of help yourself through books that are you know a little less narrative and more, you know, scientific based and things like that. So I I think this is such a good way to go through a book like this. And I same thing like if you never listen to our How of Happiness series, going through that and reading it week by week with us through that is a great way to get through a book like that that that works instead of you know you procrastinating and putting it off which I definitely do.

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

Well one of the things we talked about last year as well is if you're listening to this and you'd like for us to help you or your teams walk through a book, we have hundreds of suggestions of books that we don't get to record. And there's books that we read that we aren't putting on the show that are just as good than could be on the show. So if you'd like for an opportunity to have whether you call it a book club or a mastermind or just a cohort-based learning experience. In fact some of the work that we did in our former job the entire leadership concept for leadership development was putting together cohorts of people that stayed together for a year. And part of that experience was walking through leadership books. That was how that program began which was what prompted the podcast to start to begin with. So if that's something that you would like to do, reach out to us because that's something that we could offer and if you want to just do it on your own one-on-one as well Sam and I are both coaches. We know hundreds of coaches if you've never had a coaching experience we offer discovery calls for free. And we also have access to different kinds of assessments and tools and other things you and your teams could benefit from. Now because we're almost out of time I'll quickly pivot and say even though we said we're not going to read the life changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo, I'm probably going to reference it still all year long because it is one of my favorite books. But the second book actually is a Marie Kondo book. So Sam, what about this book?

SPEAKER_02: 24:10

Yeah so this one is The Joy at work. It is about organizing your professional life and we debated hard do we do the life changing magic of tidying up? And we thought no that's a great one. Go read that yourself that's that's wonderful. Or hey if you want to do a book club with us if read it off to the side this year, just DM us. We're open to it. We'll do whatever um but we thought that this one right in the concept of this being about life and leadership um we thought that the the joy at work would be a really great addition to this lineup because it really is about kind of organizing the mess. And the the first line of the back cover of this book is the workplace is a magnet for clutter and mess who hasn't felt drained by wasteful beatings. Yep, disorganized papers, endless emails and unnecessary tasks. And I think like if that doesn't describe the modern workplace for a lot of people I've read all those memes right like I don't know what does and so this is really about how you take control right and you were talking a lot about leadership but this is this year's about self-leadership. I think everything we talk about is about self-leadership because that's where leadership starts is with you, with yourself about you, you know cleaning up your mental mess and then finding joy at work through decluttering and getting out some of this wasteful stuff in all the ways that you've got control over and you have a lot more control than I think you think you do.

SPEAKER_01: 25:32

Yeah the third book okay so first before I talk about the third book there's a downside to you listening to our podcast and reading these books. The downside is that not everybody that you love andor work with is also doing it. And I say that because as you grow as you evolve as you change your thinking as you change your your structure as you change your systems as you change your actions and you want different results in life just like the parable of the man and the obstacle is the way not everybody's on that same journey. And it's very easy for others to come and infiltrate what you're trying to do to change yourself and your atmosphere and your circumstances and your job and your personal relationships etc it's it's difficult when you've got all that other stuff going around you. And I think that when we think about the series last year whether it was unf yourself or the bold choices or the four agreements it really was about grounding yourself without worrying about what everybody else is thinking, saying doing and so book number three is a very popular book. It has a very popular podcast and author and so what do we have for book number three?

SPEAKER_02: 26:54

We're gonna do the let them theory by Mel Robbins. And I'm super excited about this one because it is got so much talk around it in you know the pop culture world right and it's not all positive either like it's like a lot of people are really vibing with the book. There's a lot of people who are like it needs some nuance it needs some you know so I'm really excited to get into that and to see it for myself and to you know get my own head wrapped around it. But you know conceptually this is really about um you know about thinking really around like kind of the messy relationships that we have right so we've talked about you know kind of your mental mess the mess in your head the mess at work and this is sort of the mess in your relationships right of like you're trying to do all of this and the let them theory by Mel Robbins supposedly is supposed to like help kind of set you free from that. Right. And like you said, it's hard when people aren't on the same journey as you and so this is really about like well how do you deal with that right how do you how do you sit in a world where not everybody's on the same growth path as you and that can get really frustrating. And um I'm excited to explore you know what Mel has to say in this especially because so many people do seem to resonate with it so much. And I'm I'm I'm not gonna lie I'm kind of excited to see where some of the controversy in it comes to me too me too.

SPEAKER_01: 28:19

We really thought hard about having the last book of the year also be a book written by a female author. However Sam had a really good book and as we thought about the concept of why we had the structure for 2026 and what the themes were how we wanted to change our thinking and our believing and our acting and getting different results in life you came up with a great book that I have never read yet but have had on my book list, my wish list for a long time.

SPEAKER_02: 28:48

So what do we plan to end the year with yes the last book is Essentialism by Greg McCow McCowan. And it is really about he calls it the disciplined pursuit of less and you know I think like if we're gonna untangle the mess in your head, we're gonna untangle your mess at work, we're gonna untangle the mess in how you're relating to other people, then it really comes down to how do you do more with less, right? Because I know for sure when I clean out a room or clean out a closet or you know clean up the clutter, the goal is to have less. And so this is really about a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely necessary. Right. And I think that it's a perfect end to kind of this uncluttering of your life because it is then okay so what do you do once you've shuffled things around, once you've sort of put things in buckets how do you continue on with what is just really essential for you that is going to get you the things that you want in life, keep you happy all that sort of good stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 29:59

Awesome awesome awesome we may have some special edition episodes that creep in there here and there. I'm hoping so Zach has some really good books that are coming off of his shelf that we want to share as well. But when you take the 20,000 foot view with us for this year think of it like this this is four books. They're all manageable to read we come with new episodes every Wednesday they're about 20 to 30 minutes long or today a little bit longer just as we introduced the year and we're available to you if you want to go deeper.

SPEAKER_02: 30:32

Absolutely and this year we're launching a Substack um so for those of you who already know what that is great. For those of you that don't it's just um another platform for you to uh get a little behind the scenes get some more of Denise and I's thoughts we're figuring out exactly what that structure looks like but we're talking about you know maybe doing some writing in addition to you know listening to the podcast every week so that you guys can get inside our heads a little bit more on some of the topics. There'll also be video there as well as you know is the goal too. So um just another way for you to experience so we would love if you would join us there. There will be some really cool experiences that you can you can kind of join in on and like I said we're kicking that off and you know we'll be building that as the year goes. So come on the journey with us. It should be really fun but that's um W oyb dot substack.com. The link will be in the the show notes here but um if you go to W O Y B, what's on your bookshelf dot substack.com, you'll be able to join right there with your email for free and uh see our all of our episodes are available there today. So if you want to go back and read them but also um like I said you'll get more stuff from us just a little bit deeper a little bit like if you want to dive on dive deeper on one of these topics it's the place to start for us for sure. So talk to us, join us there. I'm really excited about that journey.

SPEAKER_01: 31:53

Yeah Sam I'm I'm looking forward to next week when we do episode one of Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and set the stage for what that book is all about by Dr. Caroline Leaf. Zach should have some links for you all in the show notes about how you can get these books likely at a reduced rate. And we look forward to having you join us but for today my name is Denise Russo and on behalf of my friend Sam Powell this has been another episode and the first episode of 2026 of What's on your bookshelf