The more you balance getting rid of with getting, the more you’ll achieve the extraordinary results that you deserve.
Norm LeMay and Steven Kaufman
For those of us in the waste industry, we spend our days focused on one single thing: perfecting the process of getting rid of things. Haulers get rid of everyone’s garbage. Vendors help haulers get rid of inefficiency and operational waste. Our goal is to clear away the trash so people and businesses have the room they need—the emptiness—to be creative, to innovate and to reach whatever goal they set out for themselves.
When a garbageman empties a can, he gives that home or business a fresh chance to dump what they don’t need and keep things clean, organized and humming along. When a hauler optimizes a route, drivers get the breathing room they need to keep their busy workday free from wasted time and wasted energy. Activities like these are very unique because success is measured not by what we get, but by how much we get rid of. That’s what we’re going to explore in this article: the power and potency of balancing what we take in with what we toss.
The Origins of Tossing
The origins of this contrast stretch back to when we were very young. Television commercials screamed at us to buy this cereal or get this toy. We were taught about the importance of money, whose purpose is to bring stuff into our lives. This is not to say that getting is unimportant or evil. You have to get food and clothing and shelter to survive. A certain amount of getting is essential to life.
If you think about it, though, so is getting rid of. Imagine if your own garbage company stopped picking up your trash. Think about the chaos that would bring. Or imagine if your blood stopped getting rid of the waste your cells produce. You wouldn’t last very long. Waste removal is critical to survival. If it just stopped, civilization as we know it would come to a grinding halt.
Unfortunately, we’re not explicitly taught this concept. Your folks probably didn’t sit you down and have “the talk” about getting rid of trash. You likely didn’t take high school and college classes titled, “How to Get Rid of It.” The concept of getting rid of generally develops on its own. You learn to throw things in a garbage can. Emptying the kitchen trash becomes your chore. You buy a house and you know to call the garbage company to start service. You know about waste removal at an intuitive level. However, it’s not something you think much about.
Balancing the Costs and Benefits
When emptiness comes in, amazing things start to happen. Chaos disappears and calm takes its place. There’s room for creativity. Ideas flow. Just think back to a time when you were fed up with that messy closet. You put in the time to get it cleaned up and you got rid of what no longer had any value to you. Remember how you felt when you were done? The excitement and relief? Everything’s neat and clean. You’ll actually be able to find what you were looking for. You don’t have to worry about an avalanche every time you open the closet door. It’s truly amazing how a shift from getting to getting rid of can positively impact satisfaction, morale and productivity.
At the same time, it’s not easy to get rid of things, either physical or mental. Sometimes, we’re emotionally connected to a certain way of thinking. Other times, we hold on to a thought or an object because we think that it may have value in the future. Sometimes, we regret what we’ve tossed in the past and made up our minds that we’re never doing that again. Most important, we hold on because there’s no guarantee what things will look like if we let go—and that can be pretty scary (see Figure 1).
When we think like a garbageman, though, we see that the benefits of getting rid of old thoughts, beliefs and opinions (or TBOs, as we call them) are huge. The old stuff doesn’t have to stop you or your organization anymore. Instead of standing on the sidelines or holding yourself back, dumping I can’t or I don’t deserve opens up the space for I can and I do deserve. Free from the limitations of your old trash, you can now try things and do things that you never thought you would because all the negative TBOs that traditionally stood in your way have been swept aside. This applies to you personally, to the organizations within which you work, and to the family and friends that are so important.
Getting rid of old TBOs also lands you squarely in the creative zone. Think about a time when you pushed all your negative thoughts to one side and just cleared your head. Remember how easily the ideas came to you? That’s what getting rid of old TBOs does: It creates the room you need to think new thoughts that can completely reinvent a project or a relationship.
Kicking Off the Process
So how do you kick off this process of balancing getting rid of with getting? You first ask whether a TBO has any value. Is it helping or hindering you? Is it moving you along the route toward your goal or is taking you on an unproductive side trip? If the answer is “It has no value,” then the TBO is garbage and it’s time to get rid of it. That opens up empty space in your mind that you use to think through what’s next for you and your team. Once you create that route, you’ll only fill the emptiness with thoughts that help you get to the places you’re striving to reach. Just like a garbageman, your route is the key to productivity and accomplishment.
This means that if you want to make room for something new, you usually need to get rid of some something old. That’s how you keep the balance between getting and getting rid of. Say you’re cleaning out a closet and you get rid of the old stuff without bringing in anything new. That gets you the maximum amount of new, open space. Alternatively, you can get rid of the junk from the closet and bring in a few new items you picked up at the store. So long as you threw out more than you brought in, you’re still ahead of the game.
What if you never cleaned out the closet, but instead simply added a bunch of new items you bought. Guess what? The chaos hasn’t gone away and the mess is still in there! Even if what you added had tons of value, it’s still going to get all mixed up with the old junk and you’re probably going to lose sight of it after a while.
Our minds work exactly the same way. Let’s say that for years, you’ve carried around the TBO, I’m not talented enough to be promoted. One day, you find out that there’s a new job opening at your company. At this point, your mind is going to move in one of three directions.
In the first direction, your brain doesn’t even recognize that a TBO like I’m not talented enough is garbage. It’s got you by the throat so tightly that it never even occurs to you to apply for that job. The opportunity slips right past you and you hardly even notice.
In the second scenario, though you’re still holding on to I’m not talented enough, a new thought pops in: Gee, would it be great to apply for that job. It hovers in the back of your mind, but there’s no real conviction behind it. Guess which thought is going to win? That’s right: I’m not talented enough. Because you’ve had it for so long, this way of thinking and acting has a lot of power. You’re used to doing what it tells you to. Plus, there’s no route guiding your actions. Without commitment and a sense of direction, the new thought doesn’t have a chance to take hold. You may feel a little emboldened by the thought of applying for the job, but in the end, that emotion isn’t enough to spur you into action and nothing really changes.
In the third scenario, you stare I’m not talented enough right in the eye. You don’t sugar coat it by saying, “Oh, gee, this is how I always act” or “This is just the way I am.” You call that thought what it is: garbage. And what do you do with garbage? You throw it away, which is exactly what you do with I’m not talented enough. In that moment, a million new possibilities open up for you, including the most obvious one: applying for that job. Suddenly, your garbage no longer dictates your actions. You new thoughts do.
Keeping It In Gear
Here’s an important point. When you’re first working with the balance between getting and getting rid of, don’t worry about what new thoughts you should bring in once you do a little mental housecleaning. That comes later. Just see if you can get through the first step of tossing the old trash in your head. Later on, when you’ve got practice dumping what you no longer need, you can focus on filing up your emptiness with new TBOs.
A great way to stay focused of getting rid of is to use the concept of ACT: become aware of the garbage thoughts running through your head, choose which ones are trash and toss them just like you do any other garbage. Let’s say you just threw out the TBO I’m not talented enough to apply for that job. When another opinion creeps in that looks like it (for example, There’s no way they’re going to consider someone with my lack of experience), notice that it’s just more of the same and remember the key slogan: Toss that trash!
The best way to keep reintroducing getting rid of into your company or into your way of thinking is to create a route. What are your goals? What are you trying to achieve? Where do you want to be in the next three or six months? When you know you want, which makes it so easy to spot a TBO that’s fighting you and undermining your goals with the same old negative, beat-you-down negativity. Just like a garbageman, a route provides a sense of direction and purpose and makes a brilliant counterweight to getting. If you don’t need it, you’re not going to chase it.
The more you work with this idea of tossing negative, unproductive TBOs, the easier it will be to toss what you no longer need. As getting rid of plays a larger and larger role in your life and in your company, you’ll start to feel like that cleaned-out closet: more open, more organized, and free from chaos and drama. These benefits are made possible by using a skill you already have: taking out the trash.
So the next time you get rid of something, remind yourself just how powerful that act really is. The more you balance getting rid of with getting, the more you’ll achieve the extraordinary results that you deserve.
Norm LeMay and Steven Kaufman, co-authors of the book The Garbageman’s Guide To Life: How To Get Out of the Dumps, share over 40 years in the waste management industry. These guys know trash, how to get rid of it and how to clear your mind for success. For more information, call (800) 806-0301 or e-mail [email protected].
Figure 1
When Getting outweighs Getting Rid Of, the result is usually chaos, hoarding and disorganization.
Figure 2
When Getting Rid Of outweighs Getting, brand new possibilities open up all the empty space you create by dumping the old garbage.
Images courtesy of The Garbageman’s Guide, LLC