An Interview with Sam Spurlin, Author of Living the Simpler Life
At simplifi.de we always want to be pointing you to resources and people who we think could be a great help in your simplicity walk. We’re all in this simplicity journey together, and we’ll all learn more together than we would separately!
To that end, we wanted to post an interview we did with Sam Spurlin. Sam writes about simplicity, minimalism, and conscious living on his blog thesimplerlife.net, and he recently released his first eBook, Living the Simpler Life: 8 Essentials to Practice Every Day. Enjoy!
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your simple journey, and thesimplerlife.net.
Well, I graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Science in Education. I moved back home to southeast Michigan thinking I would find a full-time high school teaching job. However, that is not what happened. Believe it or not, but the economy is a bit slow in the Detroit area so I was unable to find full-time employment. I started substitute teaching on a part-time basis and in October 2009 I started thesimplerlife.net.
I’ve been passionate about personal development and living simply for awhile and I had even started other blogs. However, thesimplerlife.net was my first true attempt at making something that would last. After easily brainstorming 100 article topics and writing approximately 15 articles, I launched thesimplerlife.net on October 12, 2009.
At the same time, I also entered my first year of coaching as the head coach to the brand new University of Detroit Mercy hockey team. I suspected that I had a passion for coaching and that was quickly confirmed as I got into the season. I also began helping my old high school with their hockey team and although I was still very near unemployed, I suddenly found myself very busy.
Thesimplerlife.net is all about how I try to live as simple and conscious a life as possible.
2. What motivated you to write Living The Simpler Life?
Originally, the idea came to me as I was writing a series of posts for thesimplerlife.net called “The Essentials of Simplicity”. I wrote three different articles and I thought it’d be a fun project to take those three pieces I had already written, add a few more, and release a free ebook. Instead, I re-wrote nearly all of the original pieces and ended up writing much more than I thought I would.
I just tried to distill all the different areas and disciplines of my life that I’ve simplified into a few general “essentials”. I think that practicing the eight skills I lay out in the book lay the foundation for a simpler & “better” (whatever that means to you) life.
3. What are the biggest effects you’ve seen in your own from implementing the “8 Essentials”?
The biggest effects I have seen have definitely been in my own focus and mindfulness. I got the whole minimalist thing down awhile ago so I really don’t own a whole lot in terms of physical possessions right now. However, I think the greatest frontier for simplicity has to do with our mental processes. For me, that has been learning how to mono-task and focus completely on whatever task is at hand. I’m not particularly good at it right now, but I was much worse before writing this ebook :)
4. What are the biggest obstacles people will face in implementing the 8 essentials?
Well, trying to implement all of these, all of the time, everyday is going to be tough. I know the subtitle says “8 Essentials to Practice Everyday”, but I don’t mean every single one every single day :)
5. There have been a lot of great eBooks coming out on simplicity and minimalism. What makes this one unique?
I tried to go beyond what I consider to be the “low hanging fruit” of decluttering. I wrote one chapter about purging physical belongings and after that I didn’t discuss it. For a lot of people, that’s where simplicity and minimalism ends. For me, I think that is where it just starts to get interesting. I tried to tackle the more mental and emotional aspects of simplifying your life like cultivating gratitude, patience, values, developing a desire for less etc.
6. Simplicity is a very broad concept, applicable to all parts of life. What made you pick this particular topic of daily things to do?
I think the word “daily” came into play because I wanted to focus on the idea that living a life of simplicity is a journey. It’s not a one time event where you clean out your closet and say, “Welp, I’m living a simple life now!” It’s about the daily decisions, the daily interactions, and the daily events. Once you’re able to integrate these essentials into your everyday activities, without having to think about them all the time, you are much closer to living that “ideal” simple life.
7. Five years from now, how would you like Living The Simpler Life to be affecting people?
I hope it would continue getting people to think about what they have to do to live a life that is driven by their own values. What living a simple life really boils down to is making decisions (about commitments, what you consume, how you treat other people, etc.) that align with your values and not external and uncontrollable factors. If this ebook can still help people start their own journey toward a simpler life, I would be thrilled.
8. What would the ideal review of Living The Simpler Life look like to you?
Ideally, I would hope the reviewer found a couple pieces of insight from the book that spoke to them in some way. I realize that some of the information in this ebook is probably found on other blogs in this niche. I’ve been heavily influenced by many great writers and bloggers but I hope the reviewer would be able to tell that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this stuff and maybe even came up with a unique thought or two :) I’m passionate about helping, teaching, and coaching (which are all the same, anyway) people so if the review said something about how this ebook helped them in some way I would be tickled pink.
9. What didn’t we ask about Living The Simpler Life, that you want people to know?
I just want to thank you for interviewing me and anybody who has read the ebook for allowing me to monopolize some of your precious time and money. I am deeply appreciative and I hope this is only the first foray into a long career of writing to help people.
Thanks, Sam, for taking the time to talk to us, and congratulations on the book release! We (Barbara and Luke) are reading our copies of the book right now, and we’ll be posting a review soon! All we’ll say right now is: it’s worth it! You can check out more about the book and purchase it here.
