inspirations from

the
rad•i•cal
min•i•mal•ist  

nina yau
 what is this?
Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist
is the free companion ebook for The
Radical Minimalist.

It is a compilation of the best of the best.

The most inspiring golden nuggets of truth
from a powerful, authentic and radically
intense book.

For the full version of the following

material, please consider purchasing a
copy of The Radical Minimalist by visiting
http://castlesintheair.org/blog/resources/t
he-radical-minimalist/.

Be prepared to change your life.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 2

 
Radical thinkers will always
be deemed as irrational, non-
pragmatic, impractical,
unrealistic, unreasonable, and
Well, guess what?
just plain crazy.
we are.
Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 3

 
Living a radical life means changing the fundamental belief
systems you once had adopted as your own without thinking.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 4

 
 Living a radical life means

eliminating all clutter and

stagnation in your life so you can be
free to enjoy the simple pleasures
and joys life has to offer.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 5

 
You have to realize that the reality is,
life is seriously short.

Too short to be completely miserable

where you’re at and wondering what
have you done with your life to get to
be in the place that you are in.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 6

 
There will be a time and place for

everything.
Knowing when to quit in order to stay
laser focused on what matters
most at this time in your life will

undoubtedly make a huge

difference.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 7

 
 You can be a different person, for

the better, if you so choose by

reinventing yourself.

Who you are now does not mean this

is who you ought to be tomorrow.

Or next month or next year.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 8

 
Learning from those who have come
before you is wonderful. Use their
experiences and mistakes to avoid in
order to better yourself.

Copying from those who have come

before you won’t help you create
your own unique identity.

You must learn to do that yourself.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 9

 
 You’re not here in this world to be
average.

You were meant to be

radical, in your own way.

Average people yield average

results. They also tend to lead
average lives, have average careers, an
average marriage, an average
personality, average viewpoints, and
an average lifestyle.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 10

 
 When you give yourself away to
another by means of time spent with
them, you can never get that time
back.

You are, essentially, giving a part

of your life to that person.
This is the truest form of giving.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 11

 
Radically giving of yourself is
what most others won’t bother to take
the time or effort to do.

In this way, you can significantly

change your life – and others
– for the better.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 12

 
You must learn to take care of
yourself first.

Nourishing your soul

abundantly and frequently
helps ensure you can then give more
to others than you would have been
able to if you were stretched thin and
overbooked.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 13

 
 Don’t limit yourself by the title you

hold. It’s the life you live that is far

greater than what the title will ever
depict.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 14

 
When you start changing your
mindset to an “I can” attitude rather
than an “I’m so stupid and will never
amount to anything” frame of mind,
miracles will happen.

The universe opens its glorious

doors of opportunities and things just
happen.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 15

 
 Positivity radiates from one person
to the next. Likewise, so does
negativity.

You have a choice which type of

energy you would like to spread to
others.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 16

 
Be radically positive . Allow yourself
to just smile. To breathe in and out
deeply. To savor the beautiful
moments in life.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 17

 
 Reading enlightens your soul. It
opens your eyes to experiencing
something you may otherwise not
experience. It allows your imagination
to freely go about unchained and
uninhibited.

From there, anything is

possible.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 18

 
Being authentic means you are true
to yourself – and others – by not
going by what authentic means in
their book of definitions.

Be authentic by defining it
yourself.

Then go out there and practice it.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 19

 
You are your own person. Be radically you.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 20

 
 So in between the two points, why
must we accumulate so much, just for
it to be perished and gone
anyways?

You know that you came into this

world with nothing and you also
know that you will leave this world
with nothing.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 21

 
 Starting over can be truly
liberating, the most freeing
decision we can make for ourselves in
regards to a minimalist life.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 22

 
Don’t let your stuff tell you what to do,
how much energy to put into them,
and basically, own you.

You own your own life and that

includes your stuff.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 23

 
By first limiting what you need to
have in order to survive, you realize
you actually don’t need much at all.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 24

 
 Realizing you are abundantly rich, far beyond measure, when
you look around you at the wonderful gifts and blessings you have,
you can then realize that this life … it is just absolutely beautiful,
extraordinary, and perfect the way it is. Far more than what
we can comprehend.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 25

 
Things not only take up physical
space, but they take up much mental
and emotional space.

Learn to let go.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 26

 
 If that is what we crave, wouldn’t it
make sense to give others what they
We crave human interaction but
need most? Love?
mostly, we crave love. Love from
our parents, love from our families,
love from our significant other, love
from our neighbors.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 27

 
Spend time with others and realize
that at the end of one’s life, we don’t
want all of our stuff around us … we
want our loved ones
surrounding us.

If that is what’s most important

then, that is what should be most
important now.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 28

 
 We all start with equal footing, 24
hours in a day. Being wise in
choosing what you do with those 24
hours is how you focus on what
matters.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 29

 
How do you know the net will
appear if you never take the leap?

You don’t.

You just do it.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 30

 
You never know how plans change
until they actually do. It doesn’t
matter if you write down every
miniscule detail or if you wing it.
Things and events change as they are
meant to change. We just need to
learn how to go with it.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 31

 
 Busy for the sake of busy is just
foolish.

You just need to live your life freely

and simply.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 32

 
When you attach the very essence of
who you are and allow deeply
ingrained sentimental values to take
firm root to physical items and
something happens to said item, you
break down, fall apart, and feel utterly
destroyed.

Let go.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 33

 
 Letting go will free you to live in the
now, to live fully as best as you
can.
We must come to grips with this fact
that life is ultimately a blink of an
eye, a miniscule sliver in time.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 34

 
Let go of your stuff.

Free yourself.
Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 35

 
 You are who you are and you
choose how you are to live
your life.

Don’t let others tell you otherwise.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 36

 
Paring down your activities to just the
absolute essentials allows you to
focus a thousand times
better at what you do choose to spend
your time on.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 37

 
We were made to set our own rules,
to live our own lives, to follow our
own hearts.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 38

 
 We were born to be radical, in our own unique way.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 39

 
 Stop going by others’ rules. Stop
playing the games the world has set
out for you to play, like some mouse
in a maze. Just stop that nonsense.

Your life, your way. Do it.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 40

 
Other people do not know what you
need in order to be happy. They
may say they do and offer prolific
advice and tips on how to live your
life, but in the end, they really don’t
have that much insight into what you
need in your life.
Only you would know.

Become your own authority figure.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 41

 
 Solitude for a radical minimalist
not only helps us to think deeper on
the meaning of life, but it also helps us
to have a clear mind on how we
wish to live our life as compared with
how we actually are living our life.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 42

 
You deserve to live a radical life,
with freedom as an inevitable by-
product when you decide you no
longer want to settle for life as
you’ve been told to live, but rather, a
life you were meant to live, by your
own rules.

We are all capable of it. We are all

worthy of it. No one is below it.

Freedom is for everyone.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 43

 
Norm will always be there. Average will never go away.

You can decide whether you want to be average or beyond the norm.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 44

 
 This ebook is free. Do what you wish with it.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 45

 
need ideas, though?
Here’s some to get you started:
1. Print out your favorite quote from this book and tape it to your bathroom mirror,
cubicle wall, refrigerator door, your child’s forehead, etc., and look at it every single
day. Read it. Get fired up.
2. Now do something about it. Don’t let the fire die. Ever.
3. That’s it.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 46

 
 for more
Visit my blog Castles in the Air at
http://castlesintheair.org, where we’re
changing the way we view and think about
the world through minimalism.
You can reach me through Twitter
@ninayau.

Nina Yau | Inspirations from The Radical Minimalist | Page 47

 
about the author
Nina Yau is the author of The Radical
Minimalist.

Nina is a radical minimalist who owns less

than 100 things and advocates a
minimalist lifestyle through her blog
Castles in the Air.

She currently lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Join the minimalist revolution. Visit

http://castlesintheair.org.