STEP 1 FIND THE VALUE AND TOSS THAT TRASH

"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."

— Warren Buffett

A few weeks ago, I pulled my truck up to a house and found a big pile of green garbage bags lying next to the can. As I started to throw them into the truck, the guy who lives there walked up to me.

"I'm sorry for the mess," he said.

"You don't have to apologize," I replied. "You can throw out anything you want."

"I know. That's the problem. This was my mom's house. She has Alzheimer's and I had to move her into a home. Every time I pick up a vase or a bowl or a magazine, I ask myself, 'Does this have a great story behind it or is it junk?' Unfortunately, her memory is too far gone to help me." He looked away for a moment. "I just know I'm throwing away some of our family history. And it's killing me inside."

What he said really got me thinking. As I looked at the tons of trash that passed through my truck — all the stuff that I'm hauling out of people's lives — I realized it was there because people decided that it had no more value to them anymore. What was going on in their heads? How did they make those choices? So I started examining how my brain makes basic keep-or-toss decisions, and it didn't seem very hard: Keep the jewelry (high value) and toss the broken mug (low value).

I also realized that the same kind of thing goes on in my mind. I have a huge collection of thoughts, beliefs, and opinions in my head, or TBOs for short. They cover everything about me: my intelligence, my skills, my looks — the whole way I think about myself and how I fit in this crazy world. I've been collecting these feelings for years, ever since I was a little kid. I assumed that I made keep-or-toss decisions about my thoughts just like I did with my other stuff: keep the obvious ones like I'm a pretty decent artist and throw out the useless ones like I'm the worst painter ever. Then I looked a little closer at what was actually happening.

Since I've had some of these TBOs for so long, my brain naturally says, "Hey! These must have real value." It never even occurred to me to question whether I need them anymore, just like I never questioned why the closet was so full until I opened the door and everything fell onto my head. I'm holding on to garbage in my mind that should have been tossed a long time ago — and I'm tossing things of tremendous value that I should never have let go in the first place. Why, then, can't I toss that trash? Why do I insist on dragging it around with me year after year, long past the time when it's actually useful? It's because I don't have a working knowledge of value. That's what this chapter is going to focus on.

THE CENTRAL ROLE OF VALUE

Even though there's garbage in my truck, I don't treat my truck like garbage. That's because it's the most important tool I need to do my job and I value it very highly. I've taught myself to tune in to all the subtle ways that it works, so much so that I can tell when there's an issue with the engine or the hydraulics just by the way the truck sounds. But it wasn't always like that. When I first started out, everything was so new I couldn't see a problem until it was right on top of me.

The same thing was true growing up. When I was a kid, my folks never sat me down and said, "Here's how to tune in to your brain and figure out which thoughts to keep and which ones to toss." Instead, they put me in a sweatshirt, dropped a backpack on my shoulders, and sent me off to school with all the other kids.

What a rude awakening that was! I got into fights. I had crushes. I had friends who duped me. Without a user's manual, my little mind had no idea how to deal with all this new input, so it whipped up negative TBOs like I must be stupid when a teacher embarrassed me and I'm a weakling when I got my butt whipped by another kid. Pretty soon, all that chatter showed up in my behavior. I stopped raising my hand in class. I thought twice about where I went on the playground. It didn't matter that some teachers liked me or other kids wanted to be my friend. My brain kept latching on to the negative thoughts, as if those TBOs had the power to crush anything that tried to prove them wrong.

Now, fast-forward twenty years. When my boss asks for a volunteer to head up the truck safety program, does my hand go up? Of course not. I'm still listening to the I must be stupid voice in my head. When there's an opening for a route supervisor, do I apply for it? No way. I'm stupid, remember?

I know it sounds silly, but that's how I'm wired. I won't take action as a grownup because of something that happened to me when I was a kid. I keep lugging TBOs from one period of my life to the next, even though they don't fit the person who I am right now. It's like keeping all my clothes from the time I was born until now, even though none of them fit anymore. Seriously, how can a belief from a person I was twenty or thirty years ago be relevant to the person I am right now, today?

Having had this flash of inspiration, I realized I could do one of two things. I could let those old, outdated TBOs continue to run me, or I could find ways to take my garbageman skills and turn those TBOs to my advantage. This is where understanding value comes in. I can use it to open the door to my mind, turn on the light, and look at what's stored on my mental shelves — no different from what I do with the closet when I decide it's time to clean it out. One by one, I hold something up — a hat, a sweater, a thought, or an opinion — and ask myself, "Does this have value anymore?" If the answer is yes, it stays. If not, it goes.

Every day, I make dozens of subtle keep-or-toss decisions. All I need to do is consciously apply those skills to the stacks of TBOs I've got in my mental attic. I look at what's stored up there and I use my understanding of value to get rid of the TBOs I no longer need.

IS IT TREASURE OR IS IT TRASH?

Value can be a very slippery fish. It has a lot of different sides that can make it both powerful and difficult. The toughest lesson I learned is how easy it is to misread. Here's a great example of that.

One day, I stopped my truck in front of a double-wide trailer in a local trailer park. I knew the man who lived there was old because I'd seen him a couple of times struggling to get his can to the pick-up spot. This particular day, I noticed it wasn't out at all; the can was still under the carport. I wanted to be helpful so I ran up the driveway and dragged it to the truck, but when I flipped the lid to empty it, I noticed that it was full of dirt. Technically speaking, I wasn't supposed to dump yard debris. I hesitated for a moment, and then decided to bend the rules and do him a favor. I emptied the can, put it back under the carport, and went on my merry way.

When I showed up at his house the next week, he was standing at the curb, leaning on his cane. An oxygen tank hung over his shoulder. He signaled for me to get out of the truck.

"Are you the one ... (wheezy breath of oxygen) ... who emptied my garbage ... (wheeze) ... the last time?"

I nodded.

"Did you see ... (wheeze) ... what was inside?"

"Yeah. A bunch of dirt. I figured it was your yard debris and you put it in the wrong can."

He pointed that cane right at me like it was an extension of his finger. "Well, guess what? (long, painful wheeze) You figured wrong!"

It turns out the old man made his living selling fishing worms — a very special breed that people drove from miles around to buy. He needed more room to raise them so he transferred the worm farm to his garbage can. Without realizing it, I had misjudged the value of what I'd seen and had thrown away his entire livelihood.

This story goes to show how difficult value can be to work with. It's the most important tool I use to decide what's garbage and what isn't, yet what makes something valuable can be all over the board. I saw dirt in a garbage can. The old man saw a unique way to make a living. I made the wrong value call and created one heck of a mess.

The same thing applies to the TBOs running around in my head. If I don't have a clear set of criteria to determine their value, I'll have no idea which ones are helping me and which ones are tripping me up. When I say "criteria to determine their value," I mean:

* Is the TBO true?

* How do I feel once the TBO kicks in: fearful or fearless?

* When I take action on the TBO, does it help me or hold me back?

* Is this TBO new and useful, or is it a holdover from years past?

If I'm fuzzy on what makes a thought valuable, I'm going to make some boneheaded mistakes, the most obvious of which is tossing what I should keep and keeping what I should toss.

Nailing down those criteria can be tricky because what's important to me changes over time. When I was younger, I never paid attention to what I ate. Now, I see huge value in a diet that doesn't send my cholesterol through the roof. The opposite is also true. After someone stole my coin collection in high school, I got the idea that people couldn't be trusted. That TBO doesn't have much value to me now if it makes it difficult for me to make friends. If I'm not the same person I was twenty years ago (and I'm not), it's probably a bad idea to use twenty-year-old criteria to judge my current set of TBOs. I need to weigh their value based on what's important to me now, at this stage of my life.

Value is also influenced by how I'm feeling. The more connection I feel to a TBO, the more value I'm going to give it. If I like the mailman but I can't stand my next-door neighbor, which relationship am I going to value more? The same thing goes with what's inside my head. If a TBO makes me feel good, I'm going to give it a pretty high value. The problem comes when I overdo it. If I think all my TBOs are important, I'll never get rid of anything. That puts me right back at square one: too much garbage in my life.

A quick word about TBOs. I don't want you to think that all TBOs are bad things that should be purged from your life like a disease. Some TBOs are great to have around. Let's say I formed one like I need to be careful whom I trust when I was a kid. That's a good thing, right? Being careful protects me by making sure I slow down before diving headfirst into an unfamiliar situation. That same TBO can be neutral, too. I may keep it around, but, given how I'm wired, I'm naturally cautious, so the TBO plays a small role in my thinking.

However, if I've morphed that belief through the years into Never trust anyone, that's a bad TBO and it needs to be tossed. It makes it tough to form friendships, to be open to love, and to create meaningful business partnerships. So I don't think all TBOs are trash. They can be good, neutral, or bad, depending on how that TBO makes me feel and how it influences my actions.

If you're looking for some specifics about how to create your own criteria for value, don't worry. That's coming up a little later on in this chapter. For now, just remember this: Being crystalclear about which thoughts have value is the gateway to throwing out your trash.

ARE YOU STEPPING ON THE ACCELERATOR OR THE BRAKE?

I can't tell you how many times I want to pull my hair out when I'm on my route. I hit every red light. I can't get close enough to the cans to grab them. Cars keep cutting me off. Those are the days when I wish the trash would just throw itself into the back of the truck and I could go home.

Here's the truth. When my day starts to go sideways, I have two choices about how I can act. I can jam the accelerator to the floorboards and drive like a crazy man, or I can tap the brakes and pull my mental truck over for a while. If I choose wrong, I may end up somewhere I really don't want to be.

When I'm feeling really charged about a situation and my emotions are calling the shots, that's a reaction and it's a lousy time to assign value to a TBO. When my emotions are taking a back seat to calm, rational thinking, that's called a response, and my value decisions are way better when they come from here. Let me give you a great example.

I was doing my morning inspection when I heard some singing near one of the trucks. It was Tony, a driver I took under my wing a few years back. When he saw me, he stopped singing, hopped in his truck and drove away before I could say anything. A few days later we were having beers. When I told him that he had a great singing voice, his entire body stiffened and his face went cold — not the reaction I expect when I give someone a compliment.

It took me a while, but I finally wrestled out of him that he had wanted to pursue a career in musical theater when he got out of college — until his father went ballistic, told him it was a stupid idea, and threatened to pull the plug on paying for school. Tony immediately dropped the idea of being an entertainer and had never stepped foot on stage since. That was twenty-six years ago.

So what happened? As soon as his dad flew off the handle, Tony quietly created a couple of TBOs deep in his head: A career in singing is a stupid idea and What my dad wants is way more important than what I want. Without realizing it, he assigned huge value to these two beliefs. Now, two and a half decades later, they are still in control. No matter how many compliments he gets, all Tony hears is his dad chewing him out. By this point in his life, it's not his father who's stopping him anymore. It's Tony and his mental garbage.

What if he had responded instead of reacting? When his dad went off, Tony would have seen it more like a movie, as if he were watching it from a distance. He might have said to himself, "Man! Dad's all riled up about this. I wonder what that's about." Responses let you think that way.

I'm not saying that Tony won't have some strong feelings about what his dad said to him, but he would have had some breathing room around them. Would he have made the same decision not to sing? Who knows? But at least he would have had a level head to weigh his options instead of running for cover, chased by his dad's anger. Responses give you a clear picture of how much value your TBOs have. That makes it so much easier to figure out what's worth keeping and what should be on its way to the can.

SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM VALUE

Almost every day, I find an end table or a chair sitting at the end of the driveway that folks want me to throw away. Needless to say, these aren't family heirlooms made from solid wood. They're cheap veneer and particleboard and they don't last. That's why I inherit them instead of the grandkids. Lousy furniture is a great way to think about the two types of value: short-term and long-term.

My computer and cell phone have value, but it's not the same value as my wife's wedding ring. The friendship I just struck up with the new route supervisor is very different from the one I have with my buddy I've known since grade school. Some things have long-term value, which means they're deep and important and they'll be with me for a long time. Others have short-term value: They play a role in my life but they aren't going to be with me forever.

Longevity doesn't dictate value, though. Think about Tony. The TBOs he carried around for so many years weren't true. Singing isn't a stupid career and his needs were just as important as his father's. Also, if he stiffens like a board every time he gets an "attaboy" for something positive, the TBOs he's holding on to obviously don't make him feel very good. So in this case, long-term holding doesn't equate to long-term value. Sure, those TBOs might have felt important to Tony — important enough to rule his life for decades. However, if he looked closely and applied an objective set of criteria based on who he is today, he'd see that they were garbage.

That's exactly what happened. It was tough for him to do, but he finally admitted that he'd blown off his dreams the day his dad had jumped down his throat. Sure, he made a good living as a garbageman, but what he really wanted to do with his life was to be on the stage. I asked him how long he was going to let his old trash continue to control his life. That was six months ago.

Last weekend, I took my wife and kids to a musical here in town. Want to guess who had the lead role? That's right. Tony. And the best part? There was this old guy in the back row who had a smile on his face the whole performance. It was his dad.

Sometimes, amazing things happen when you finally take out the trash.