The Not So Big Way to Have Useful Beauty Every Day with Sarah Susanka – SASM 117

ByJoel Zaslofsky

Tiny can be good (see: tiny houses). Small can be even better (see: quantities of foods you love).

But sometimes – just sometimes – not so big is just the right size.

My guest for this episode, Sarah Susanka, is an expert in and creator of the not so big life. She's a best-selling author of books like The Not So Big House, a prominent public speaker, and has too many awards to name for her work as an architect.

Maybe you saw her on Oprah or Charlie Rose a while back and, if not, perhaps the name sounds familiar as a source of inspiration for a generation of people who now know that their sense of home is much more about quality than quantity.

Here are two nifty things she had to say during our invigorating chat:

“If you look with the eyes of a student, everything can teach you.” – Sarah Susanka

“If we can make useful beauty [in our home], something that inspires us every moment of our day, we're going to have such a different experience living in that place.” – Sarah Susanka

Put on your student hat, press play, and let's learn from a master of not so big!

You're about to Learn …

  • How to bring useful beauty to every room in your home.
  • How to schedule your passions and actually act on them.
  • Why Sarah emphasizes “not so big” over small.
  • How to have more “real time” where you're 100% present.
  • What Sarah does when she hits life's pause button.
  • How sailboats can help you right-size your world.
  • Why a room's height has an out-sized impact on your experience.
  • How (and how often) to remind yourself to fully take in the now.
  • Why you need to ask yourself, “Which me is speaking right now?”
  • What book Sarah wrote first and why it's still not published.

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Timestamps and Topics

  • [06:38] Sarah's seeds of awesomeness
  • [11:41] Expectations for the world back in the 1970s
  • [14:27] Why Sarah gave up writing for architecture and ended up writing again
  • [24:32] How to make “not so big” part of your home philosophy
  • [28:48] How to bring useful beauty into every room of your home
  • [35:20] How to have more “real time” where you're 100% present
  • [40:02] What Sarah does when she hits life's pause button
  • [47:28] “Which me is speaking right now?”

 

Transcript