Those of you that know me are probably asking yourselves “What is Damon doing writing about elegance?” I drive a 1995 Maxima that I bought for $700 about 4 years ago, I wear jeans that I bought at Costco for $15. I keep my face unshaven at most times (my wife likes it that way!). So what am I doing blogging about elegance?

What do you think of when you think of elegance? My wife says she envisions a beautiful flowing gown. My mom thinks of a beautiful woman with the dress perfectly tailored ready for a special event. This is probably the way most people think of elegance. At work, we talk about an “elegant solution” to solve problems we might have. For example, on the Windows Phone 7 you don’t have to unlock the phone to dial a phone call. That is elegant!

Last year I read the book “who’s got your back”. This was one of my favorite books last year as a few of the concepts in the book have dramatically affected my life. The author, Keith Ferrazzi was working 80+ hours a week, feeling stressed out and tired, and really not being as productive as he would like to be. He knew he couldn’t continue living like this so he called a mentor of his. His mentor invited him out for a “Long, slow dinner”. They went out and his mentor asked him a few probing questions (don’t you love it when your mentors do this to you?). The first question he asked was how his finances were with his business-how’s the balance sheet, how’s the cash flow, do you know your money goes down to the penny. Keith was shocked-what did money have to do with where he was in his life? He didn’t come to talk about money! His mentor then zinged him with a statement that struck him to the core. Keith-you know what your problem is? Your problem is your life isn’t elegant.” Of course, Keith had the same thoughts about elegance as most of us do-he thought about how he grew up poor and always strived to live a different life than he had. He remembered the rich kids teasing him for being poor. His mentor then explained elegance.

Elegance is putting out the minimum amount of energy to get the maximum result. It’s that simple. The rest of the book describes how he achieved an elegant life by surrounding himself with people that had and/or were like he wanted to be. His claim in the book is that who we are is the “average” of our five closest friends (but this topic is for a future blog post).

I’ve spend a lot of time thinking about this new definition of elegance. I’ve searched my own life to determine how elegant my life is, and I’ve found a lot of places that were very inelegant, and have made some changes.

• I took Keith’s advice and looked at our finances. When I was brutally honest with myself I realized that the state of my finances was really a great indicator of the elegance in my life. My wife and I sat down, we made a budget, and we changed how we managed money in our home. Our solution was quite elegant…we went to using cash for our expenditures (this, too, is a future blog post). This elegant financial solution has had a tremendous impact on our marriage and our financial health.
  
• I love to read and have stacks of books that I’d love to get to, but never have the time to READ. But then I realized-I don’t have to READ to get the benefit of the books. I could LISTEN to the books on CD and learn the same amount. But where would I find the time to LISTEN? Turns out that right around the same time I was given a job that necessitated a very inelegant commute of 40 minutes each way. The elegant solution occurred to me-LISTEN to the books I wanted to read during the commute! Within a month I was able to double my intake of books, and it took me LESS TIME than reading. Now this is an elegant solution.
• I determined that exercise is critical to my health (emotional and physical). The work move also put my office too far from my gym, so I stopped exercising. I wrestled with this for quite some time, but then I came up with an elegant solution. I found a Snap fitness that was 3 minutes from my office. Turns out there is also a Snap fitness 5 minutes from my house. I began running on the treadmill for 30 minutes at lunch 2 to 3 times a week, and exercising on Saturday’s at the Snap near my home. As I write this blog, my wife is at the Snap fitness as well (we had a membership at the Y but almost never used it because it was very inelegant-it took 30 minutes of commute time for a 30 minute workout). This elegant exercise solution has resulted in me losing about 5 lbs. since I started and I have increased my endurance dramatically as well.

These are a few examples of elegance in my life. I’m able to accomplish more with less effort by striving for elegance in every area of my life. I have a lot more peace, my relationships are better, I’m healthier, I have MORE time available to do the things I want to do. One of my goals for 2011 is to live an elegant life. I’m very energized by this goal as I’ve personally experienced the benefit and the effects are now impacting those closest to me as well.

How about you? What areas of your life could benefit from an elegant solution? I want to challenge you to pick one area and strive for an elegant solution. If you get stuck, let me know, I’d love to help!