A Bit of Optimism - Atomic Habits with author James Clear

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

In the New Year, we all aspire to become better versions of ourselves. But how do we change our behavior so new habits actually stick?Well, James Clear is THE expert on habits. His book, Atomic Habits, is the #1 New York Times bestseller with over 15 million copies sold.Together, James and I break down his powerful approach to forming better habits, breaking the bad ones, and living the life we desire.This...is A Bit of Optimism.To learn more about James and his work, check out:jamesclear.com 

If you're like me, you would like to start some good habits. And you'd probably like to stop some bad ones, too. Well, thank goodness for James Clear. He is the patron saint of habit forming. He wrote the book Atomic Habits, which has sold a whopping 15 million books worldwide. Turns out there are lots of people trying to build good habits. Turns out there are lots of people trying to build good habits. So to start this new year, I sat down with James to find out what we can do to build some atomic habits.

This is a bit of optimism. James, thanks for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Pleasure to talk to you as always. So I know you talk about this all the time, but we have to talk about it a little bit. Atomic Habits has, it is unbelievable how obsessed people are with your book. It is unbelievable how many copies that that book has sold it in such a short period of time as well. So credit to you, kudos. What is the reason you think that that book has taken the world by storm? Like, what is it that you think resonates with people so much? I have some suspicions, you know, like at some point, you get to this level, where the only way a book sells that much is through word of mouth.

And there are some things that you can do to try to drive word of mouth. The most obvious one is you have to create something that is genuinely useful. I like Seth Godin's mark for it where he says to drive word of mouth, you need to make something remarkable. And that means it's worthy of remark. Certainly, I tried to do that. What I'm curious about, what is it about the buyers? What is it about us that makes a book about our desire to improve our habits and get rid of the bad ones so appealing?

Like, what is it about the topic that you think resonates so much with people? Well, humans are very social creatures. You know, we have always grown up around each other and our ancestors. And, you know, we have evolved in a very social society. And many researchers will tell you that status plays a big part in that. And that can mean many different things. But generally speaking, people genuinely realize that as you achieve more status, you things tend to go better for you. You have the interest of more people who as a potential mate, you get better job opportunities, you earn the respect of your peers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It is

genuinely true that if people like you or respect you, that it tends to work out well for you. And I think people can draw a pretty clear connection between having better habits and achieving the things that they want to achieve, whatever status it may be for them that they're interested in. And so I think there is some deep truth that we all realize, which is that many of our outcomes and results in life are a lagging measure of the habits that precede them. So your knowledge tends to be a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits. Your bank account tends to be a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits. Your bank account tends to be a lagging measure of your financial habits. Even little stuff like the

amount of clutter in your living room tends to be a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. And habits are not the only thing that matters in life. But I do think we all, for whatever reasons, tend to be pretty results oriented. And we can see how our habits tie into those results. So that's the first piece. The second piece, though, and this is the atomic, that's the habits part of the title. The atomic part of the title is, it doesn't have to be that hard, right? We can scale it down, we can make it accessible, we can make this easy. And that part is also very appealing. And it's actually the contrast between you can have the results that you want and you can make small changes that I think, achieve. What I expected you to say was people are insecure about what they're unable to do. And this helps them overcome that stickiness.

Like when somebody tells me about atomic habits, I'm thinking about all the stuff that I'm not doing. Like, oh my goodness, like I'm not doing this. I'm not doing, I wish I, I wish I was better at that. Wish I read more books. I wish I, you know, was in the habit of cleaning my car once every two weeks or whatever it is. Well, I think what I'm getting at though, there certainly there's a performance aspect. And for a certain type of mindset, there's like a peak performance desire, that kind of thing, the achiever mindset. But really what I'm trying to get at is that I think what it taps into is the sense of hope there. We all have a sense, this hope that by improving our habits, we will have some of the things that we hope to

achieve or that we will have more of the life that we hope to have. Another element of this that I think ties into that hope piece is habits are pretty universal. And it's an interesting topic because it is simultaneously universal. We all have them and we're all building them, whether we think about them or not. But it is also highly individual. You know, your habits feel like your habits. They're not the same as mine. When somebody picks up the book, they have this hope that they can change their habits, whatever that little package of behavior happens to be into something that will give them a little bit more of the life they want to have. And every person that looks at the

book has a different little version of that in their mind. So it is, it's universal. It speaks to all of us, but everybody's got their own little version of what it might look like. Okay. So forgive me, but we're going to have to do this. We have to go through some of them. Let's make it real specific. If I'm going to have you on the podcast, I might as well personally benefit from it. So let's do a good habit and a bad habit, one I need to build and one I need to break. Okay. Okay. Let's start the one I need to break. I bite my nails. I've done it since I was a kid. It drives me nuts. How do I stop biting my nails? Okay. So before I answer this question, let me just give like the brief summary of the framework

that I kind of lay out in much greater detail in the book, and then I'll go through how to apply it to this. All right, so basically there's, it's what I call the four laws of behavior change. And this is a lot of what the book is built around. And there are many ways to do these things. But for building a good habit, you kind of want four things to happen.

And then for breaking a bad habit, you kind of want four things to happen. So for building a good one, you want to make the habit obvious. So you want the cues of your habits to be obvious, available, visible, easy to see. You want to make it attractive. So the more compelling or motivating or enticing it is, the better off you are. You want to make it easy. So scaling it down, reducing friction, and then you want to make it satisfying, more rewarding or beneficial, the more enjoyable it feels, it feels more likely to repeat it all right so we'll come back to that in a minute when we talk about your good habit for breaking a bad habit you just invert those four so rather

than making it obvious you want to make it invisible rather than making it attractive you want to make it unattractive rather than making it easy you want to make it difficult and rather than making it satisfying you want to make it unsatisfying all right now if we take biting your nails make it invisible make it unattract, you want to make it unsatisfying. All right, now, if we take biting your nails, make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult, make it unsatisfying. All right, make it invisible. This one's kind of hard because you can't cut your fingers off, right? So it's going to be that one's going to be tricky. Make it unattractive. So there's an example of this in the book, there's a story I tell about this guy who bit his nails for many years, finally, through a little bit of willpower, he doesn't bite them and lets them grow out for a week or two. And then he goes and gets a manicure.

And the manicurist happens to tell him, hey, you know, you actually have like pretty good, healthy nails, aside from the biting thing, like, you know, these look kind of nice. And he said it was the first time in his life that he took a little bit of pride in how his hands looked. And that signaled a little bit of a shift for him internally. Suddenly it was a little more attractive to take care of his nails and he felt differently about it than he did before. And that increase in pride for him, that was enough to get him to start to treat his nails differently

and to not bite them as much. All right, so that's one thing from making it unattractive. So make it difficult. This one, there are many examples of this. But the one that I came across in my research that I thought was so interesting was that there's this pattern with people who get Invisalign, they will often stop biting their nails. And so they put the Invisalign retainers on their teeth, and they can't bite their nails in the same way it doesn't work. And they often have to do that for 12 months

or 18 months, however long it takes for their teeth to shift. And by the time they get through that year or two period, it's funny. They don't bite their nails anymore. And that is basically make it difficult, you know, like they can't do it anymore. And so the friction is so high that they need to take the liner out to do it. And they, you know, anyway, so that's make it difficult. And then the fourth and final one is make it unsatisfying. They make all kinds of products. They've got like nail polishes and stuff that tastes terrible and, you know, things like that. Those are just some quick examples of how to apply that framework.

There are many ways to do these things. In this specific example of biting your nails, what I have found is that a lot of people bite their nails while they're doing something else. Like they're in the middle of writing. Yeah. They like do it while they're thinking or they do it while they're, you know, exactly. So, so let's say that you do the Invisalign thing. Cause you're like, okay, that kind of makes sense. That's an easy way for me to, you know, like increase the friction. Yeah. But you probably still need some outlet for that energy. Like the picking or the chewing or whatever was something that you did kind of mindlessly as you were working on something else.

So maybe you can figure out what it means for you, but maybe it's like a little squeeze ball on your desk or a fidget spinner or whatever. But you probably need some outlet for that energy that can replace that habit. Yeah, that's a nice insight, which is my fingers have become my fidget toy. I carry my fidget toy wherever I go, which is kind of what it is. If I can replace it, make something else more enjoyable. Very interesting. And so what you find with a lot of these strategies in the book, there is no one way to build better habits or to break bad habits. There are many ways. And in most cases, what you find is that you don't need a single shift, you need kind of a system of three or four, maybe even 10 little adjustments that you make. And collectively, they all work

together to kind of usher you in the right direction. That's all the little things. Yeah. And I assume your book spikes in sales in January. It is high. It is highest for sure. The first week of January is the biggest. You are the book equivalent of the gym membership. Yeah, for sure. And everybody wants good habits and breaks bad habits for the new year. So I assume one of the big ones is going, getting back in shape, going to the gym. Exercise, you're right. Exercise is the most common New Year's resolution. So let's remember those four laws real quick.

So make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying. That's for building a good habit. And again, there are many ways to do each of these things. Make it obvious is like, you know, you set your water bottle and your running shoes and your gym shorts out the night before, and it's right there when you get out of bed. I actually have some readers who they will sleep in their running shorts so that all they got to do when they get up is throw a shirt on and then step out the door and go for a run.

I have weirdly, I have noticed that that works for me. If I wake up in the morning and I put my workout clothes on, even if I am kind of vague about whether I'm planning on working out or not, I definitely do feel more like going downstairs and like doing a workout. For me, it's a momentum issue, right? Which is once I start, I'm great. It's the starting, that's the problem. And I'm okay disappointing myself. So if I meet a friend at the gym, I will be there on time because I don't want to disappoint them. But I am perfectly happy to wake up early and then sit in bed and read the newspaper for an hour and then get to the point where it's like, oh, it's no time

to work out anymore. Because I'm just disappointing myself. Like, whatever, I can deal with that. Well, those are two really good insights, which is, you know, having some kind of workout buddy or somebody that you meet at the gym or meet for a run or at yoga or whatever, is a good motivator for a lot of people. And so that alone could be the answer, you know. So that's make it obvious. Second step here is make it attractive. So I wish I had written this in the book. This is one of the things few things that I didn't include that I wish I would have. written this in the book. This is one of the things, few things that I didn't include that I wish I would have. I think it is worth it for any habit, not just exercise to sit with the question of what would this look like if it was fun? What would this look like if it was enjoyable for me to work out? What would it look like if I had fun meditating every day? What would it look like if it was fun to write? And that doesn't mean that your habits will be the most fun thing in your life. Like your habits are not going to feel like going to a concert or something like that. But there may not be a thousand ways to do everything in life,

but there is almost always more than one way. And you should choose the version that is most naturally motivating or exciting to you. In a lot of ways, I feel like this is one of the biggest hurdles to cross, which is, are you genuinely interested in it? And you should choose the version of living an active life. You should choose the version that is most interesting to you. I think if you can figure out how to make your habits fun, that is a great starting point. Okay. So make it obvious, make it attractive. Third step, make it easy. Yeah. So scaling it down is a huge part of making habits sustainable. Yeah, I recommend people use the two minute rule, which is just says take whatever habit you're trying to

use or trying to build. And you scale it down to something that takes two minutes or less to do. So read 30 books a year becomes read one page or do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. And sometimes people resist it. But there's this deep truth about habits, which is a habit must be established before it can be improved. You know, we're so focused on optimizing a lot of the time, we're so focused on finding the perfect sales strategy, the best diet plan, the perfect workout program. And so focused on optimizing that we don't give ourselves permission to show up in a small way. If you can scale it down, just focus on the first minute that often gets you going and the momentum kind of carries you forward. And then final thing, fourth law is

make it satisfying. And this can take many different shapes. There can be external rewards. Like if you don't miss a workout for a week, you take a bubble bath or go for a walk in the woods or buy yourself the piece of clothing you've been saving for whatever. But in the long run, I think the true way to make habits satisfying is that you start to draw this through line between your habits and your identity, you start to connect what you're doing with the type of person you want to be. And that that's kind of where I am. Now, I just like being the kind of person that works out or that doesn't miss workouts or that takes care of my body or that moves. And so whenever I'm doing a workout, even if I'm just in the

middle of the first set, at some deep level, I'm feeling good about myself because I'm doing what I want to do or that I'm acting in the way that I hope to be. And if you can connect your identity with your habits, that ends up being a pretty powerful reward in itself. What's next? For building habits or for me? No, for you. Do you want to be the habits guy for the rest of your life? Are you okay with that?

That's an interesting question. I think I have way too varied of interests to do that forever. But I'm happy to do it for this like five or ten year period. And a lot of people are finding value in it. I just want to do it for this like five or 10 year period. And a lot of people are finding value in it. I just want to be useful. You know, I want to provide something valuable to people to contribute my little bits to my corner of humanity. And a lot of people have found atomic habits and the principles useful. And so that makes me feel good to contribute something. So in that sense, I really like it. But of course, I have many other parts of my personality and many other things that I'm interested in. And so at some point, I will for sure, the book, and then the TED Talk came out, and then the request for the speeches increased, and people called me the why guy. And I'm fully aware of the value of that idea and was proud to

be the sponsor and the preacher of that idea. I believed in it. I still live my life based on it. Sure. But I reached a point where I was like, even my publisher, when I wrote my second book, they designed it to look like the first book, as if we were serializing it. And the thought of being stuck in a lane, even if it was... And the temptation was high, right? I could have done like, find your wife for teachers, find your wife for families, find your wife for teachers, find your wife for families, find your wife for doctors, you know, find your wife for, you know, cat owners.

And it would have been a fantastic, profitable, wonderful, serialized concept. But my God, the thought of being stuck in one lane for my whole life was like, I can't, I can't. And so, and I'll tell you something that's just funny. like, I can't, I can't. And I'll tell you something that's just funny. I was so obsessed with getting away from being stuck in one lane. Not only did I have them redesign the cover of Leaders Eat Last so that it looked nothing like the first book, but every book I've ever published is a completely different size format. You can't line all my five books up on a shelf and have them sit neatly in a box or neatly on a shelf. They're all completely different sizes, which I

did on purpose because every time I write a book, it's a declaration that this is completely different than whatever you've seen before. You want it to feel like its own thing. Yeah. Can I ask you something about your career? So you're like probably five to 10 years ahead of where I'm at, but you know, I'm still like pretty early. Do you think about or strategize about your business differently now than you used to? Like, was there a period where you were really committed to like capitalizing on every opportunity or trying to grow the brand or audience as big as you could, or I don't know, like take this thing to some stratospheric level. And now you don't feel that way. You're more like, no, I'm going to do stuff for free just because I like it. And I'm not that worried about how big the audience is or

how many events are coming in or whatever. Or do you find yourself still in that growth, grow, grow, grow mindset? Yeah, for sure. So the strategy I follow now is the exact same strategy I followed 15 years ago when nobody knew my name and nobody ever heard of my ideas. And it's still based on the same two ideas that I wrote about and start with why. One, I start with why, obsessively to this day. And the second thing is the law of diffusion of innovations is like a religion to me, where I ignore the majority and I ignore the practical stuff. And I'm obsessed with the early adopters and the people who believe what I believe. I've never thought about my business as a business. I always think about it as a movement. And even in our company, we don't say,

is this good for the company? We say, is this good for the movement? And so I've always treated my work like a social movement. And so the decisions I make are, will this help advance the message and the idea versus how much am I going to get from this? So for example, I have a hierarchy of what I say yes to. My favorite events are like 5,000 people representing 4,000 different companies, because it's going to take my message and it's going to spread it in a gossamer fashion to as many people as possible. The next level down is it's a hundred different CEOs. So small audience, but huge impact that goes broad. Then the next one is a lot of people from one company. But my least favorite that I almost always say no to is like, come talk to our top 300 salespeople. Because the most that

will ever happen is they'll talk about my work in the hallway and I need them to talk about my work to people who weren't there. And so I've always followed that strategy from day one to this day, which is how do I spread the message to as many people as possible? And in terms of finances, it's the same thing. In the early days, I remember a guy called me up, he said, and this is before a book and before a TED Talk, I just had this concept of the why. He called me up and he said, I heard about you. Convince me why I should hire you. And I said, don't. Now, I needed every... I was living paycheck to paycheck, hand to mouth. I had no money. I had no nothing. I was just an idiot with an idea. But I knew that anybody who says, convince me why I should hire you was not an early adopter.

And so everything in that financial relationship, though I would have made money in the short term, it would have not have survived. It would not have become an effective long-term relationship. I would rather say yes to people who would say to me, you're onto something. I don't think it's perfect, but I really think you're onto something special. I don't have much of a budget, but I really believe in what you're doing and I'm willing to let you test your stuff on my company. I said yes to those almost always. And not only did those relationships flourish, but they introduced me to other people. Other people became my champions. And so I built my cause and I built my business without any marketing because I made values-based decisions.

So I got along really well with the people that I worked with and they really wanted me to meet other people that they knew. And they were my marketers. And so those strategies, a little more complicated today because now I'm also viewed as the, because I'm a bit more of a known quantity. I'm not just this preacher standing on a stage that some early adopters like. Weirdly, before you were well known, it had to be about the ideas because you didn't have your own. I had nothing else. Now it's kind of like some people will hire you just to be like, look who we brought in for you. Yeah, that happens.

And the ideas are there too. But in some cases, your brand alone is on equal footing with what you're saying. And so now I have to add new criteria, which is I have to be able to scale ideas and invite and get as many people to join the army to build the help others industry. Forget the self-help industry. It's the help others industry that we need. What about your next chapter? Where do you feel like you go from here?

I'm in this magical period of... So I embrace this concept of, I don't know, right? I'm not afraid of it. It doesn't bother me. So when somebody says, what's next for you? My answer is, I don't know. And for me, embracing, I don't know, is the first step to inventing. It's the first step of creativity, Because if I knew what I was going to do next, then there's no innovation. There's no need to invent something. I just do a back plan,

right? Like so many people, I'm upset with the state of our nation and how we're at each other's throats and how divided we are. How do we get past that? How do we get to see each other, learn to have conversations with people who we maybe vehemently disagree with? We're more separated, more anxious, more lonely. How do I help foster relationship? And my biggest one, to be honest with you, I want to see a return to idealism. We've forgotten the concept of world peace. We don't talk about world peace anymore. Why not? That's a pretty noble cause to pursue. And I would like to pursue world peace again. And I think idealism has become corny, and I want idealism back. And when you ask me, how do we get idealism back? My answer is,

I don't know. And so I'm sitting in this period right now of I don't know, on a journey of trying to figure out how we get back to idealism, because we need it and we crave it and we're lost without it. Can you tell me something specific you've done in your career? A specific project you've been a part of, anything like that. It doesn't have to have even been commercially successful. That you absolutely loved being a part of it or loved doing it. That if every project or every day was like this, you'd be the happiest person in the world. So I have three that come to mind. One is in my

business. Two are completely unrelated, not commercial. They were like personal things. So the business one is 321, my weekly newsletter is just fun for me. It's such a different form of writing. It's so, you know, it takes me about two hours to do it a week. And then I spend some portion of the week kind of researching for it and stuff, but it's, it's just fun. It's three short ideas for me. They're basically tweets. It's two quotes from other people. And then it's one question to think about for some reason that format resonates with people. They like it. They can read it in six minutes and they get value out of it. And it's, it's just fun for me to do have some small creative output and people really enjoy it. So that's like on a personal side, the other two

are team related. And if I'm honest, they're probably like two of the most fulfilling things that I've ever done. So first one was my junior and senior seasons in particular of baseball. I was team captain. There were a couple other captains too, but we just had a really great crew. And you know, you don't get to pick your teammates. They're kind of like family. You don't get to choose who comes in with you. And, um, we just really clicked. Like you could pay me a million dollars to do anything else. And I would say, no, I just knew I wasn't making any money. I was a student, you know, but I was just like, I, it doesn't matter. I don't want to be anywhere else than where I'm at right now. And honestly, once you get a little taste of that

in some area of your life, to a large degree, I've been chasing that, you know, ever since having that feeling. And some of it is just like magical. And that's a confluence of factors that you can't force or fabricate, it just kind of arises when the right group of people get together. So some of it's very hard to imitate. But I would say that probably is part of what I miss the most in my current work. Being an author is very gratifying. But it's also pretty individual. There's the relationship between me and the reader, but it's different than being on a team. So that was that was the second one. And then the final one is a an orientation team that I was on. It was like 14 or 15 people. And we were helping this like kind of new cohort come in. And we just had a blast. We only worked together for two weeks. But they're like six of us that are still like best friends. Now I met my wife through it. Like it was just you talk to anybody who was on that team for two two weeks and I don't know what it was, but we just clicked. And I don't know, there's something, there's some kind of magical thing about that.

And, you know, I've been on many teams, sports and otherwise. And for some reason, those two experiences were the ones that really came together. What specifically was it about those two that was different from other teams? I get it. It was clicked. I get, I get the result. But what's, you know, if you think about that baseball team, for example, you were in many teams. I get it. It was clicked. I get the result. But if you think about that baseball team, for example, you were in many teams. Some of them were winning. Some

of them were losing teams. But what specifically was it about that team that year that stands out that you even want to talk to me about it now? I think the one part of it was everybody bought into their role. A lot of the time, people are always jockeying for different roles. Different players want more playing time, or if it's in a business context different people want to be in different positions or climb the ladder or whatever but that year like the freshmen were really happy being freshmen in the role that they played and the seniors were happy to be the leaders and it was i don't know just like it worked together well um and so everybody kind of bought in to their part and how they were contributing.

Of course, everybody always wants to play, but there was a real buy in from everybody. So that that helped. For my part, I made a point to learn all the freshmen's names like the first day, which sounds like not a big deal, but I think they were like 18 that year. So there's a fair number of new people, new faces. And then to go around and tell each of them what we were trying to achieve that year, how they can help and just like make it clear, like, this is what we're working toward. If you don't want this, then you shouldn't be here. Because like, this is what we're really trying to do. And I think we got to the time when the season started, everybody's just very aligned.

That helped a lot. And then, you know, some of it is just, you can't control the personalities that are involved. And we were lucky to have good personalities. And what about the orientation? What was it about those two weeks? What is it about specifically, again, you said you've been on a lot of teams. What was specific? It was so playful compared to so many other teams are serious or like, I don't know, like we all, we all were smart enough and talented enough. We got the work done, but it was just like one big fun time. It actually makes me think and question how serious we really need to be to perform well a lot of the time. And would we actually do a lot better if we were just having way more fun? And that was easily the team that I had the most fun. And so I think that was

an enormous part of it. Tell me an early specific happy childhood memory, something specific that I can relive with you. Okay. My grandparents on my dad's side have a farm. And one specific summer, I think I was 12, my cousin and I, who's like five days apart from me, so we're like the exact same age. We went down into the farm field and there's a creek. And we started to build a dam down there. We were trying to create this little kind of pond and we, we convinced my dad to haul an 80 pound bag of concrete down there. Um, so he does this for us, you know, sweating like crazy. And then

we built this little mold and created our own little dam down there at the bottom of the Creek and made our own little pond. I mean, to call this a pond is a stretch, right? It's like probably the size of like three bathtubs. But so anyway, we've got this little area we're playing out in all summer. And we came across this doll somehow that was like it was just in the woods. And it had long since decayed and stuff. It didn't have any eyes and it was kind of like falling apart. But we positioned it in the middle of the dam. And so there's this little waterfall, the water coming out of the eyes and out of the mouth. It's probably a very creepy scene

to anybody who stumbles across in the woods. But my cousin and I had a blast down there that summer. It was awesome. So I have a very strong affinity for the outdoors and love doing stuff outside. And a big part of my childhood is out there. But anyway, that is one of the many random little memories I have.

Sounds like you had a fun childhood. It's, you know, of all the silly, fun things you did, what specifically was it about this one thing that you did with your cousin that stands out that you want to talk about it now? There were no adults involved. So it was just us. Like we could do whatever we wanted, whatever our vision was. And now I love that's like one of my favorite parts of being an

entrepreneur is that I try and I try to practice this. I don't always do it. But I try to be really good about this. I try to not be my own bottleneck in life. So often people will talk themselves out of an idea before the world actually prevents it from happening. And as best as possible, I try not to do that. I think like, what would the magical outcome be? You know, what would the ideal outcome be and then work backwards from magic. And you'd be surprised how often things are possible that so many people will only attempt something if they can already see an example of somebody else who has done it. And they're like, you know, so you come up with a big idea. And then they're like, well, are people doing that yet? If you always have to wait to see an example of somebody doing something before you attempt it. I don't know, like, your path

through life is unique, you know, and not ever, no one's going to have your exact strengths and weaknesses and resources and opportunities and whatever, like you got to find your own way. In a lot of ways, you are the example. And so you can't let that be a reason for not attempting it. Now, you still have to wrestle with reality. You know, you still got to handle all that stuff. It's not that you can just live in this fairytale world and not deal with any of that.

But I think that that summer with my cousin was an early trial run of brainstorm, experiment wildly. What would the magical outcome be? And then just work backwards from that. Like we were just doing it because we were 12 and we thought it was fun. And now I think I'm like, okay, well, I'm in my 30s, but what is fun? What's the magical outcome now? So I think that part of my personality kind of got to shine.

So all three of those stories are the same story, which is you light up when you share those stories in a way that you don't really light up when you're talking about atomic habits. And maybe it's just because you've talked about it so much for a few years now, but you light up and you use the word fun so many times. In a lot of ways, I think that one of the most magical things that humans can do is they can create something, not necessarily something from nothing, but something that didn't exist before. Often it's not from nothing. It's like, it's a synthesis of things that were previously unconnected or that ideas that were previously untapped. And that is the most fun for me. Like I,

I didn't realize this about myself until recently, but what I really want is to be building something. As long as I'm creating something, it could be building a new house. It could be building a book. It could be creating a website that whatever it is, I want to be making something. And that's the part that's the most fun. James, an absolute pleasure getting to talk to you. An absolute pleasure getting to know you a little bit more. Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's awesome. Thanks, Simon.

My pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsenic.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other. Thank you.