The 14th Minimalist

The 14th Minimalist We all need a team. If you want to growâ€"if you want to be successfulâ€"then you must surround yourself with outstanding people who share your vision, your values, your beliefs. Whether you visit our website or meet us in person, you might think  The Minimalists are a couple of thirty-something guys who live in Montana. What you dont see is everyone who makes  The Minimalists possible. As far as we can tell, there are at least 14 people responsible for the proliferation of our message 1 2. Joshua Ryan. Yes, we are the formidable faces of  The Minimalists, the messengers of simple living. But spreading the message requires more than messengers 3. Colin Wright. Theres a reason we dedicated our new book, Everything That Remains, to Colinâ€"he is the person who introduced us to minimalism. In a roundabout way, hell always be the third minimalist. 4. Shawn Mihalik. Shawn is our first paid employee. We gave him a fancy titleâ€"chief of staffâ€"because we cant afford to pay him bags of cash. In addition to being a talented novelist, Shawn handles many of the day-to-day affairs back at our command center (a tiny one-room office) in Missoula. He also helps with our tour-stop bookings and the free Local Meetup Groups at Minimalist.org. 5. Sarah Miniaci. Publicist extraordinaire, Sarah works her magic wand and hat rabbit to magically spread our message via conventional media (print, radio, television, online). If you found us via any media outlet, you can thank Sarah for her prestidigitation. 6, 7, 8. SPYR. The trio of Marla, Jeff, and Dave, the founders of SPYR, are responsible for everything you seeâ€"literally. From our book covers to our website, the folks at SPYR are the Mozarts of design. 9. Adam Dressler. Our friend since high school, Adam is a pastor by trade, although his secret talent is capturing the truth in his photography. Although he claims to be an amateur photographer, Adam takes better photos than any professional we know. Most of the photos on this siteâ€"nearly all photos of usâ€"were taken with Adams masterful eye behind the viewfinder. 10.  Matt DAvella. A talented director living in greater New York, Matt and his team at Catalyst are partnering with us on our first feature-length film:  Minimalism: A Documentary. (N.B. We just uploaded our trailer for the film.) 11, 12, 13. Joshua Becker, Courtney Carver,  Leo Babauta. These three minimalists were instrumental in our journey early on. Although all three lead considerably different livesâ€"they come from different backgrounds with children and families and different work situationsâ€"their deliberate, meaningful way of life proved to us that there were many flavors of minimalism, which inspired us to take the leap. 14. You. Of course the most important part of this websiteâ€"of this entire movementâ€"is you. Without you, wed simply be perched on a soapbox, yelling in an empty room. So, wherever you are in life, wherever you are on your journey, wherever youre going, were grateful youre here with us right now. Who is on your team? Just remember: you cant change the people around you, but you can change the people around you. UPDATE: Since writing this essay in 2014, we brought two more people on board: Shawn Harding, our director of operations; and Jessica Lynn Williams, our social media manager. As our minimalist message keeps spreading, our team continues to growâ€"thank you for being a part of it. If you find value in The Minimalists, consider donating a dollar.