BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 485: Atomic Habits That Help You Achieve Unthinkable Success w/ NYT Best Selling Author James Clear

Episode Date: July 11, 2021

Three years ago, Atomic Habits was released. In this groundbreaking book, author James Clear asks a complex question “why do we continue our bad habits while neglecting good habits?” While it���s not as easy as simply saying, “I want to be better, hence I’ll stop doing this”, there are some ways that you can convince (and often trick) yourself into developing the habits that will help you create a better life. The first thing to know about habits is that they aren’t a minimal part of your life. Your habits are what your life is built upon. Do you habitually clean your room every week? You’re most likely a clean and well-organized person. Are you constantly looking for ways to save money? You probably have a decent-sized bank account. If you want to become the “money person” or the “helpful person” or the “intelligent person” you need to start adopting the habits that someone in those positions would have. So how do you develop a good habit? More importantly, how do you halt your bad habits from derailing your entire life? James walks through a few key ways to do this, from making habit cues less obvious, to changing your environment, to removing yourself from the choice entirely. One thing is for certain, if you want to change your life for the better, you need to start changing your habits. In This Episode We Cover: How James developed his interest in habits and psychology Becoming “the architect” of your habits and not falling victim to poor choices Understand the end goal and slowly work your way to it Taking on the actions of someone successful and becoming that identity  Why bad habits can be so hard to break How long does it take to develop a habit? Intaking media that will change your mindset and influence your actions And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums OpenDoor Capital BiggerPockets Youtube Channel BiggerPockets Pro Membership BiggerPockets Events BiggerPockets Facebook Group BiggerPockets Store Brandon's Instagram David's Instagram BiggerPockets Podcast 254: Tim Ferriss on Real Estate, Becoming a Top Performer and His Tribe of Mentors Click here to check the full show notes: https://www.biggerpockets.com/show485 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 485. The direction of your life bends. The arc of your life bends in the direction of your habits. And so, you know, sure, there are other things in life that influence outcomes, luck or randomness or misfortune. But by definition, those things are not under your control. And the only reasonable, rational approach is to focus on the stuff that's in your control. And your habits and your choices are.

You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on in a morning? It's Brandon Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here actually at Bigger Pockets headquarters,

which is weird because I'm never here in Denver, but here at BP headquarters. with digitally my buddy David Green, who coincidentally is actually in Maui. What's up, buddy? Yeah, that's funny. I'm actually in Maui at one of the condos that I bought and you left. Yeah, I got this big, huge, like $30-some million multi-family deal that we're buying here out in Vail County or Vail Valley is what they call it. It's like out near the ski resort. It's like Vail.

It's crazy. I wouldn't look at it. It's awesome. So, yeah, that's what's going on with me. You got some condos, all that going good. You can get them rented out soon? Yeah, I'm meeting with some people today to go over, putting a team together who's going to kind of do that Airbnb thing. I'm still looking to find other people that have done this before that I can kind of consult with and possibly hire.

But it looks like for the rest of the year, I'm going to kind of be moving in the direction of buying more short-term rentals and putting a team in place to try to manage those and trying to figure that game out. Cool, I love it. I love it. Taking action. Well, today's show is with an author. you've probably heard it before. James Clear, he's a, I mean, his book Atomic Habits has sold well over four million copies now. It's been on the top of every booksellers list for since it came out. It's always listed as like one of the top books in the world. It's hugely influential to a lot

of people. A lot of people mentioned on the podcast before. So we are super stoked to bring you an interview with him today. We talk all about habit creation, how to build new habits that are good, how to destroy bad ones. What is a good habit versus a bad habit? We talk a lot about how habits get placed in the business, and I give some examples in my own business, how I've used habits in my team to buy a lot of real estate. And David, I know you do the same. We talk about how habits affect, I mean, really every area of your life. So this is probably one of the most important episodes you could ever listen to of any podcast. I'm not just saying that because I'm, you know, it's a bigger pocket show. Like it literally this concept is life changing. So I'm excited for you

hear it. But first, let's get to today's quick tip. Listen, on the show, we talk about habits. And one of the examples I give is about the habit of analyzing deals. And so if you have not mastered that art of being able to run the numbers and feel comfortable making an offer because you know exactly how much that property is worth and how much you should pay for it, if you have not done that, we offer free training every single week at BiggerPockets on how to run the numbers on deal. So we do these webinars every week. And when you attend, we do a real life deal analysis every single time because we know that's important. So attend any webinar that we do. Just go to BiggerPockets.com forward slash, I think it's fourth. slash webinars, plural, we'll get you there. And you can attend the next webinar, learn how to analyze

deals and get better and better at that. And if you're a existing pro member, by the way, you don't even have to attend live. You can watch replays anytime you want to in the Bigger Pockets Pro replay room. So that's your quick tip is build the habit of analyzing deals. It'll change your real estate life forever. That's our quick tip. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at

home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-hosts with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications, it can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip.

You can relax, knowing guests are taken care of, and your place is in good hands. You travel, your house works. Everyone wins. If you're ready to host but could use some help, find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. There are two kinds of real estate investors, those who have reviewed their insurance, and those who think that they have.

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Have NREG review your insurance. with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BPPod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-Pod. You've upgraded how to buy properties, but did your insurance get the memo? When investors start scaling, insurance can't be an afterthought. Most policies were designed for a single property, not multiple rentals, LLC ownership, short-term stays, or properties mid-rehab. That's where blind spots can creep in.

N-Reg works exclusively with real estate investors. They understand portfolios, how risk compounds as you grow, and why insurance should protect your upside, not just a checkbox. One uncovered claim can undo years of progress. Before your next acquisition, review your insurance. Talk to NREG and get investor-specific coverage from specialists who actually understand real estate at NRE.com slash BPPod. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-P pod. All right. With that said, I think we're ready to get into today's episode.

David, anything you want to say before we jump in with James? I really enjoyed our conversation with James. I think people are going to get a lot out of it, especially if you are, an investor who's trying to figure out why you're not gaining traction. Why is this so hard to get going or why does this just feel scary all the time? Today's episode has a lot for you specifically. Enjoy the episode. And if you like it, don't forget to leave a rating and review in iTunes or wherever you're listening to the podcast at. If let the world know it's really good, maybe share it with somebody you think would be powerful. This is not a real estate show. We barely talk real estate

today. So anybody that's in your world that could benefit from better habits would probably like this show. So do us a favor. Share it on your Instagram, on your Facebook, whatever you can do, clips of it, social media. Take a picture of it. Help us spread the world. about the power of developing atomic habits. Let's get to the interview with James Clear. All right, James, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast, man. It's awesome to have you here. Hey, great to talk to you.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, so let's dive into your story a little bit before we get into the topic I want to cover today, which is, you know, obviously habits. But before being the guy that sold millions of this book and kind of a household name in the personal development world, what were you doing? What was your kind of background? Well, I was always into science and I like school. and sports. And so I played baseball the way through college. And then I studied the science as well.

I was there. Technically, my degrees in biomechanics, but it was mostly like chemistry and physics classes and stuff. And then after that, I went to get my MBA, which is kind of where I started to get exposed to entrepreneurship. And I saw my job, my on-campus job was to work in the center for entrepreneurship. And so I saw a bunch of people starting companies and rolling stuff out. And I was like, maybe I should try that after I get done. And so when I graduated, I gave it a shot and had no idea what I was doing. So the first two years, I just kind of stumbled around and tried a bunch of ideas. Nothing really stuck.

And eventually, I realized that one of the reasons I was struggling is because I didn't have an audience. I launched these products and didn't have anybody to tell. And so I started writing to build my business. I started writing to build an email list and have a company, hopefully, that would succeed. And this weird thing happened along the way. which is, it turns out I liked writing and I was good at building an email list. And so I like kind of stumbled into these skills that I didn't, you know, seek out in the beginning. And I wrote about all kinds of stuff early on, wrote about health and fitness and weight training and medicine. And I also wrote about

habits and strategy and decision making and some of the stuff that I write about now. And it turns out the other stuff was fine, but what people really wanted to hear from me on was about habits and strategy in decision making. And the more I wrote about that stuff, the bigger the audience got. And I was like, well, that's where the Venn diagram overlap is of like what I like and I'm interested in and what the audience likes. So I'll do more of that. And eventually, after a couple of years, that led to signing the book deal for atomic habits and then ultimately writing it and so on. That's awesome, man. A couple of years ago, I put together a, we have a journal. I mean, there's lots of journals out there, but we have a journal, a bigger pockets called the intention journal. And I did a ton of research on,

you know, like on habits and goal setting and all that stuff. And I just kept coming across your blog, like over and over and over and over. I feel like half of my research just came from the research you did. So you saved me a lot of time. So thank you for that. But why did habits or why do habits in this concept fascinate you? Like, why is it worth writing a book on? Why is it so important that we learn about habits? I mean, first of all, your brain is building habits whether you're thinking about it or not. You know, like it's just a, it's a process that your brain goes through to try to automate whatever it can. And so depending on the research study you look at, somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of your behaviors are automatic and habitual each day. So usually it's small things

like tying your shoes or brushing your teeth or unplugging the toaster after each use, like stuff like that. But I think actually the true impact of your habits is even larger because a lot of the automatic decisions that you make end up setting the context for the conscious decisions you make afterward. So like if you're standing in line at a store and you automatically check your phone, you just kind of habitually pull it out of your pocket and look at it. Well, the next 10 minutes might be carefully thinking, oh, I need to respond to this email or I, you know, I'm reading an article or browsing social media. But everything you're doing there was already, the context for that was set by the habit of pulling your phone out of your pocket. So, you know, the true influence

to them is probably even larger than 40 or 50 percent. I mean, they shape all kinds of stuff throughout our day. And so that's one reason to learn about it. You're already going to be building them. well, might as well, if you're going to be doing this all the time anyway, understand how to be the architect of your habits rather than the victim of them, because a lot of people feel like their habits are happening to them. But then the second thing is, you know, if you step back and think about the outcomes in your life, the direction of your life bends, the arc of your life bends in the direction of your habits. And so, you know, sure, there are other things in life that influence outcomes, luck or randomness or misfortune. But by definition,

those things are not under your control. And the only reasonable, rational approach is to focus on the stuff that's in your control. And your habits and your choices are. And they also strongly influence those outcomes. And so, you know, in many areas of life, your results are a lagging measure of your habits. Like your health and fitness is a lagging measure of your eating and training habits. Your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits. Even like the clutter in your bedroom is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. And so there's kind of this like great irony of life, which is we also badly want better results.

You know, we also badly want to be fit or to have more money or to have peace of mind. But the results are not actually the thing that needs to change. It's like fix the habits and the results will fix themselves, fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. And so because habits exert such a strong influence on your results in all areas of life, I think they're a really critical thing to talk about and to understand. And that was one of the things that got me interested in them to begin with. That's cool, man. Yeah, I wrote down a quote here from the book.

It says, the more you repeat a behavior, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behavior. Can you talk about like what do you mean by identity and how does that play into what you just talked about? So far, we've only discussed habits as like the method to achieve. achieving a particular result. And it's true that habits can help you do those things. They can help you be more productive or get fit or, you know, reduce stress or whatever. And that's great that they can get external results. But I think the real reason, the true reason that habits matter is that they can

reshape your sense of self. They can give you a new story about who you are, the identity that you assigned to yourself. And so, you know, in a sense, true behavior change is really identity change. it's really changing the story about who you are and why you do the things you do. And that's why I'll say some stuff like, you know, the real goal is not to run a marathon. The goal is to become a runner. You know, the goal is not to read a book. The goal is to become a reader. Goals not to do a silent meditation retreats to become a meditator.

And in those cases, I'm using, you know, actual labels like reader and runner and meditator. But you can do it with characteristics too. You know, you can be like, I'm the kind of person who shows up on time or I'm the type of person who's reliable or I finish what I start or, you know, I'm a good teammate. And all of these labels or characteristics, they're aspects of your identity, some more than others. But whether you believe in that being part of who you are is heavily influenced by the habits that you perform. And so in a sense, your habits are how you embody a particular identity. Like every day that you make your bed, you embody the identity of someone who is clean and organized. And the more that you do

that, the more you believe in that story. So every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become. And, you know, doing one push up, no, it doesn't radically transform your body, but it does cast a vote for. I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And writing one sentence, no, it may not finish the novel, but it does cast a vote for I'm a writer. And the more that you cast those votes, the more you build up evidence of being that kind of person, the more you give yourself a reason to believe in that kind of story. And I think that's probably one of the things that's a little bit different about my approach

or philosophy than what you often hear. You'll often hear something like, fake it till you make it. And I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it until you make it. It's encouraging you to believe something positive about yourself, but it's encouraging you to believe something positive without having evidence for it. And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence.

We call that delusion, right? Like at some point your brain doesn't like this mismatch between what you're saying you are and what you're actually doing. And so behavior and beliefs are a two-way street, you know, like what you believe about yourself will influence the way you act and the actions you take will influence the story that you tell yourself about who you are. But my argument is let's let the behavior lead the way. Let's start with one push-up or sending one email or writing one sentence or meditating for one

minute. And it doesn't sound like much, but in that moment, you cannot deny that you were that kind of person. And the more you build up those votes, the more you build up this body of evidence, the stronger and more solidly you believe in that identity. When you mention habits, I know, I, and I'm thinking most of our listeners may be in the same boat, there's this negative visceral response. I don't like the thought of having to build a habit. Habit immediately sounds like discipline, routine, bad.

There's like very rarely do I hear I need a good habit and get excited about it. It's usually get rid of a bad habit. And this has come up in my life so often as of late. I'm constantly thinking about this. But I started to think about the word habit and just exchange it for programming. Like what you're really describing is every action you take affects the code that your life works off of. And that code can be working for you in making your goals easier or against you and making them difficult. And when I started thinking about it as programming, it became a whole lot easier to embrace.

brace that this is really what life is about. If you want a better life, that's how you get there in many ways. And there's a lot more we're going to talk about, I'm sure. But do you think James that I'm on the right path with my understanding of it? Yeah, there's something central about the meaning that you assign to events in your life and the story that you tell about what's going on. And that programming, as you phrased it, or that script that you're running on is at the core of every habit. You know, I break a habit into four different stages. You've got this cue, craving response, and reward. And the craving part is the programming part that you're talking about. It's a core piece of what drives a habit. And it's largely about the meaning that you assign to different things. So,

for example, if you walk into the kitchen, you see a plate of cookies. So it's a visual cue. You see the cookie on the counter. But the next thing that happens is your brain kind of automatically assigns a meaning to it. It predicts, oh, those cookies will be sweet, sugary, tasty, enjoyable. And it's actually that story in your mind about what a cookie is and the fact that it's tasty that motivates you to pick it up and take a bite and so on. And, you know, so if you could somehow change the story, like imagine if every time you, you know, saw a cookie, somebody punched you in the face, well, now all of a sudden, you know, you would have a negative connotation, a negative association with that thing. And that, of course, is an extreme example, something that's not going to work in

real life. But the point that I'm getting at is almost all of your behaviors, we think life is reactive. We think, oh, something happens to us and then I respond. Somebody says something in conversation and then I feel a certain way. But in fact, almost all of life is predictive. Your brain is almost continually going through life and predicting. What should I say in the next sentence? What does that mean when I look across the kitchen and I see the cookies? What are those?

Do they have a favorable association and unfavorable one? And it's all of these predictions that your brain is constantly making that shape the actions that you take and help determine the next step that. happens. So yes, I think of the short answer is the programming that's going on or the associations that you have learned throughout your life are a core piece of why you fall into certain habits and avoid other ones. And you mentioned that results are a lagging indicator of the choices you're making or your habits. Is that in referring to the four disciplines of execution concept? I know 4DX, like I know the term, but I've never read the book. So I'm not sure exactly what you're

It seems to be the same concept. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Just to catch everybody up, the idea would be if you look at the scale when you're trying to, if your goal is to lose weight, if you look at the scale to see what you weigh, that is a lagging indicator. It is a revelation of things you've already done. Leading indicators would be the opposite of that, which would be measuring how many times you go to the gym or measuring your caloric intake. So there's definitely some similarity there. I like I said, I'm not totally familiar with how they phrase it, but it sounds like the same idea. In terms of habits, the important thing, that I like to distinguish is, and I think this actually helps us define what is a good habit and what is a bad habit? Because a lot of the time people will say something like, well, if it's a bad habit, why do I keep doing it? Or they just feel that way. You know, it's like, well, obviously, you know, why do I keep falling into these things that aren't good for me? But the truth is all behaviors serve you in some way, you know, so like smoking a cigarette is like the classic example of a bad habit. But if you smoke outside with a friend, you know, as a part of a work break, well, then you get some socialization out of it. You get friendship out.

of it. Or if you smoke at the end of the workday, maybe you get some stress relief out of it. And so there are things that those behaviors do that serve you, even if ultimately they don't. And so the way that I like to distinguish good habit versus bad habit, and this ties directly to your point about leading versus lagging indicators, you can imagine pretty much all behaviors is producing multiple outcomes across time. So broadly speaking, we have an immediate outcome and we have an ultimate outcome. And with bad habits, the immediate outcome is often pretty favorable. You know, like you smoke a cigarette and you get to socialize right away or you eat a donut and it's sweet and sugary and tasty right now. And it's only the ultimate outcome, you know, if you keep eating

donuts for two years or if you keep smoking, that is unfavorable. And with good habits, it's often the reverse. Like the immediate outcome of going to the gym, certainly early on, is your muscles are sore, you sweat, it takes a lot of energy and effort. You don't have a whole lot to show for it. Your body looks the same in the mirror at the end of the night. It's only the ultimate outcome. two or five years later where you're like, oh, now I have the change that I was working toward. And so a lot of the game or a lot of the challenge of getting good habits to stick and getting bad habits to break is finding ways to pull the consequences of your bad habits into the immediate moment. So you feel a little bit of that pain right now and finding ways to pull the rewards of your

good habits into the immediate moment. So it feels good and you have a reason to enjoy it and so on. And ultimately, once a good habit is really established and built, and it kind of ties into that identity concept we were talking about before, you're getting some of the reward just as soon as you do it. You know, like if you view yourself as I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts, well, right when you're in the middle of doing a set of squats, you're kind of reinforcing that desired identity. And so you already are getting some benefit from doing it, even if you got to wait for your body to change. Now, of course, it takes a while for you to actually truly believe that. But that's kind of ultimately what we're working towards. So that brings me to the next point I wanted to ask you as one of the experts and habits. One of the problems that I've found in business is it's very difficult for me to distance myself from the actions I take in business that give me a direct dopamine hit.

And it sounds very familiar to what or similar to what you're saying when you say, hey, smoking a cigarette actually does accomplish its purpose, drinking alcohol. does accomplish a goal. Part of what you have to do is understand where do you want to go to know if this is a good habit or a bad habit. But I found that if I go take a listing, I have a real estate team and they signed that listing agreement, I get a shot of dopamine. I was clearly successful. I did what I wanted to do. It feels good. I get an immediate gratification. Then I have to go do all the work associated with that. And the next time a listing comes, I have to go do it again. If I train somebody else how to do it, I relieve myself of the problems that come with taking a listing, but I also lose the dopamine hit that I got when I did a good job.

I could have five people out there taking five times as many listings, and it is better for my business intrinsically to be that way. But for David Green, it does not feel as good. I'm missing that jolt I was getting. And that is what seems like it always, that's why I get sucked back into doing things that I know that I should. shouldn't be doing. Can you comment on if I'm the only person in the world that has this problem or if other people go through this too? Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm sure you're not. I think strategy is always one level up from whatever you're talking about. So right now we're talking about the mechanics of, you know, listings and so on. So like, what's one level up from that? And I would say, you know,

there's a bigger conversation that we need to have about what am I optimizing for. And you need to have a good answer to that question so that you can make choices like that. Because if you're, if you don't know what you're optimizing for, you almost always just end up doing what makes you feel good in the moment. Because why, you know, if I don't know roughly what to choose between these two choices, well, might as well choose the one that makes me feel good. And a lot of people find themselves doing that all the time. You know, they, they aren't sure what they're really working toward or what they're optimizing for. And so it becomes hard to delay gratification because it's, it's more difficult for you to envision what exactly is important to you. And the truth is, from a business standpoint,

yeah, it probably is better to have a team of listing agents, you know, doing that. And if that's what you're optimizing for, then it's easier to make that choice. But if actually you enjoy that part of the process, then maybe it does make sense for you to do it. And I don't know what the right answer is for you. And it's going to be different for each person. But like, if I think about my business, technically, I could achieve a lot more scale if I hired a bunch of writers to do the writing for me. And then I play the role of editor or, you know, I just kind of oversaw the whole operation. could be putting out more books. Some authors, some real high level authors do this. Like James Patterson has like a team of people who write for him and he sort of just does the outlines.

And that's why he's able to come out with a book every three months or six months. I'm not interested in that. That's not what I want to optimize for. Nothing necessarily wrong with it for somebody else. But because I want to optimize for, I don't know, I just feel like I should be the one producing the work and I should be the one writing all the words. Then that's going to change, you know, the shape of the business. And so I guess there's sort of two answers. You know, the first answer is what you're discussing about having immediate dopamine hits versus delaying gratification. Clearly, there's an important life lesson there. And the more that something serves you in the moment, probably the more you should question whether it's the right long term behavior, because usually

delaying gratification is the better choice. But then there's also a separate discussion about what am I optimizing for and what actually does this look like for me rather than just chasing status or chasing success or doing it because that's how everybody else does it. I want to ask kind of a cliche question, but it's one that comes up a lot. Is there a number of days, a number of repetitions that cements a habit in, right? We've all heard what is that 20 something days and then I think the one thing talks about 66 days and they've got these numbers. But what do you see is the truth about developing in a habit? How long does that actually take? Yeah. The, um, There are multiple numbers floating around.

21 and 30 days are very common things that you'll hear. There's kind of been, I don't know, historically the, you know, the myths or the, you know, statements people make. 66 days is a common one right now. There was one study that showed that on average, it took about 66 days to build a habit. But even within that study, the range is quite wide. So as soon as you start to unpack this, it makes, it immediately makes sense that the answer is it depends. Yeah. Because some habits are harder than others.

So what the study found was that, you know, something really simple, like drinking a glass of water at lunch, might only take you a few weeks, something more difficult, like going for a run after work each day, might take seven or eight or nine months. But then even within that, this isn't part of the study. This is just me talking now. You know, imagine two people trying to build the habit of going for a run after work each day. Well, if one person lives with a bunch of roommates who are all athletes, then that's like much more within the social. norm. If another person goes home and nobody in the apartment exercises, then now you're going against the grain of the group. And so the same habit can be easier or harder, depending on the context as well. The punchline to all of this, I think, is that the true answer, the honest

answer to how long does it take to build a habit is forever because if you stop doing it, it's no longer a habit. And what I'm getting at with that is habits are not a finish line to be crossed, right they're this lifestyle to be lived and as soon as you start to appreciate that and accept that you look for changes that are small and non-threatening and sustainable and that you can integrate into your daily routine and that you start to realize like oh what I'm actually trying to do here is make a lifestyle change not be healthy for 30 days and then I don't have to worry about it anymore yeah and I think that the you know saying that it only takes 21 days or 30 days or whatever it just sort of implies that, even though that's not the reality.

Yeah, I did that. You know that 75 hard program. I think Andy Frasella's program where like, yeah, for 75 days, you work out twice a day, gallon of water, read 10 pages in the book. So I did this, right? And I went all 75 days, worked out twice a day for 75 days and had the gallon of water and everything else. Day 76, I didn't work out.

Day 77 didn't work out. I drank about a cup of water for like those days. And since, like, I have not worked out every day since, I mean, I work out maybe three times a week now, two or three times a week. But I did that before, too. Like, it didn't matter if I did it 70. I did it 150 times, right? It didn't matter.

It just doesn't matter. Because, and the way I look at that is, David's laughing at me. Why would you do that? That's like I went to Bud's camp and I graduated. And then they said, hey, do you ready to be a seal? And you're like, no, I just stopped. I just stopped. And but what's funny because it was a finished line.

I mean, it was a goal. I'm not, I regret doing it. It was great. I got some good fitness and whatever. But the 150 time repetition wasn't enough to make it habit. because in my head, it was a finish line I had to get to. It wasn't an identity shift of I work out twice a day every day. That's who I am. Kind of like, I'm not eating sugar for the next month versus I don't eat sugar, right? Those are identity, like just revisiting that concept. Those are

identity phrases, not quick actions. I don't necessarily have anything wrong with challenges. Like if it's something that motivates you and gets you going, gets you to take action, then that's fine. But you often see the behavior that you just described, which is what I would call like people fall into this yo-yo cycle where they do something to train for the half marathon or to complete the 75 hard or whatever it is and then they find that they oscillate back to their old style immediately after and then it takes two or three months they're like man i haven't done anything now i need to you know pick up something else and do that and so they just this back and forth rather than a consistent ride um however it's kind of there's like this lesson

about life where it's useful to have have a plan or to have made a plan even if everything doesn't go to plan. It's still helpful to have done that. And I think that's also true for frameworks or sometimes even challenges. It's useful to know these things or to try them or to have a framework to follow, even if you don't end up sticking to it. Because in order for anybody to get results, you have to have a willingness to experiment. And it doesn't matter if it's the best book you've ever read in the world or the most motivating documentary you've ever seen. The plan can be perfect, but if you don't have a willingness to take action and to experiment, you're never going to figure out how to apply it to your life. And so, you know, that's kind of one of the funny things about people like, oh, but will this work for me?

And the point is, actually, nobody knows if it will or not. You're the only one who can figure that out if you're willing to experiment. And so I think you actually need a combination. You need a really good plan, which, you know, like obviously I'm biased, but I hope that atomic habits in the case of habits, like lays that out and gives you a good framework. And this is a great starting place. But then you also need to combine that with a willingness to self-experiment and a willingness to try things in your own life. And then it's the combination of the two that ends up helping you figure out something

that actually works for you. And so I, you know, I don't recommend challenges personally, but I don't necessarily have anything wrong with them because I do think they get people to start experimenting and start trying. And then maybe you find a couple things that work for you. and eventually you come up with your own system that fits your specific life rather than worrying about following some, you know, perfectly outlined blueprint. Yeah, that's really good.

Yeah, and like during that time, I, like, I definitely drink more water now than I did beforehand. So it like, like raised my thermostat maybe a little bit, even if I didn't get the full on. And I've done other challenges over the years. And yeah, some of them have helped and been awesome. And some haven't, you know, we do something every every quarter roughly at bigger pockets. We call it the 90 day challenge. And all I basically tell people is, can you analyze a deal? every day for 90 days.

And the only thing I really want them to do is just build up that skill. I don't care if they actually analyze it for the rest of their life. I just want them to get good at analyzing numbers because in real estate, everything's about the math. You know what's funny is in most areas of life, the person who learns the most in any classroom is the teacher, not the students. Because you got to know the material really well in order to teach it. And so in many areas, we often tell ourselves something like, I'm not ready to get started. yet I need to learn more. But the truth is the best way to learn is by taking action. And so,

you know, exercises like that where you analyze deals for 90 days, yeah, now you're actually learning because you're actually doing the work. And I think almost anybody, regardless of field, who says something like that, like, you know, what I used in, what I learned in college was okay, but like, you know, it doesn't help me that much. I don't think about back to my like biology class or something. It's, you know, you're, it's actually doing the work that teaches you the skills that you need to know. And so the faster that you can get, to doing the real thing, usually the faster the learning comes. I would say that stands very true in our world.

If I think about the people who have the most success investing in real estate, there are people who bought a house, lived in it, decided they were going to move, didn't want to sell it, had to rent it out, and just did the stuff that happened. And the people who have to go buy that house and put 20% down can't stop asking questions to need to feel prepared. What do I do if this happens? What do I do if that happens? but when you just fall into it, that's kind of how I got into it.

Those problems don't seem very big. So Brandon's become very good at this. Yeah, you just need a strong bias toward action. And if you have that bias to, you know, you trust that you'll figure it out along the way, rather than feeling like you need to figure it all out before you can take a step. It just they're, they lead to wildly different outcomes. Yeah, I think you're right. And what we end up telling newbies and what I tell myself a lot of the time in anything is if that person can do what I can do it.

That's sort of how I get over that initial. I don't know if I'm ready for this is I find somebody who's clearly unprofessional or not good at what they're doing. And I see them having success. And then I just remind myself, I don't need to have all the answers because they figured it out. I'm sure I can too. I guess what I'm getting at is a lot of what it takes to be successful is getting over the own sabotage that your brain comes up with that stops you from just taking action. That's all that really comes down to. For sure.

People are their own bottleneck usually long before the. circumstances are the actual bottleneck. They're so worried about the circumstances holding them back that they never get to the point where it actually is the reason for, you know, for them not being able to move forward. There's this weird tension that you have to have because like I simultaneously, what I also believe is, you know, it is worth it to do the reading or to do the research to be well prepared. Preparation is very important in life. But I think the key distinguishing thing is at some point planning becomes its own form of procrastination. So the question is, you know, is continuing to research and prepare and ask questions and,

you know, try to increase my knowledge? Is that enhancing the actions that I'm taking or is it substituting for the actions that I could be taking? Because when planning and preparation starts to substitute for taking action is no longer useful. But if it's accelerating and enhancing the things that you're doing, then that's great. But a lot of people use it as a crutch rather than, you know, running the risk of potentially failing. Yeah, that's really good, man. Did you know, your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late night fridge raids. Yeah, when you're gone, your place is basically on unpaid leave. It's sitting there in the dark thinking, I could be contributing right now. Your

side room wants a side hustle. Even your Wi-Fi is like, we could be networking. You're on vacation, spending money like it's a sport while your staircase at home is fully capable of sending your income upwards. Here's the twist. You can go on a trip and actually earn money. Airbnb makes that possible with the co-host network. If you're away for a while or have a secondary property, you can hire a vetted local co-host with real hosting experience to handle it all. A co-host can handle guest communications. It can manage reservations and keep things running smoothly so you don't have to check your phone between beach days. That means less stress and more time enjoying your trip. You can relax, knowing guests are taken care of and your place is in good hands. You travel,

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slash BPOD. That's N-R-E-I-G.com slash B-Pod. There are two kinds of real estate investors. those who have reviewed their insurance, and those who think that they have. Most don't realize their coverage wasn't built for how they actually invest. Vacancy periods, rehabs, short-term rentals, or LLC-held properties. These gaps surface only when filing claims. That's why investors work with NREG. They specialize exclusively in real estate investors, understanding portfolios, risk at scale, and cash flow protection.

One claim can erase years of returns. If you own a rental property, don't assume you're covered. Have NREG review your insurance with someone who gets investing at NREG.com slash BPPod. That's n-R-E-I-G.com slash BP pod. If you think property management is expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a five-figure problem

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It's probably something that people would love to hear about. There's a lot of bad habits out there, whether it's smoking, drinking, you know, whatever, or the biggest habit of all, which is for most people, which is their phone, right? I mean, the number of times I pick up my phone every day. It's ridiculous. And I can go short sprint. I'll be like, hey, 30 days, I'm not going to use my phone. And I might do it. And as soon as I'm done with that little challenge, I'm back to use my phone, five hours a day, right? So what kind of framework have you looked at as being successful

for eliminating the bad habits in our life? I know you said apply some negative consequences sooner, but what does that look like on a tangible level? I generally think that the most effective place to start for breaking bad habits is one of two areas. So in my framework, it's either the queue or the actual action itself, the response. So you either make the cues less obvious or you make the action more difficult. So it looks like the following things. Making it less obvious is stuff like if you are online shopping too much, spending too much money there. And that's a bad habit you want to break. Well, unsubscribe from emails. You shouldn't be getting bombarded by Nordstrom and, you know, all those other places. If you don't want to

to buy those things. If you feel like you spend too much money on the latest tech gear, then don't read the latest tech review blogs or follow unboxing videos on YouTube. If you're trying to follow a particular diet, don't follow a bunch of food bloggers on Instagram. People are constantly being triggered by the things they're trying to avoid. So reduce exposure to the queue is one way. You can also do this with physical things. So like for myself, I've noticed that if I buy a six pack of beer and I put it in the fridge and it's like right in the door or right there at the front where I see it as soon as I open the fridge up, I'll grab one every night and have it with dinner just because it's there.

But if I put it at the bottom of the fridge and tuck it like all the way in the back where I kind of got to bend down in order to be able to see it, sometimes it'll sit there for weeks. I won't even remember that I have it. And I noticed something's a similar pattern with my phone. You mentioned checking the phone all the time. I'm the same way. If my phone's next to me,

I'm like everybody else. I'll check my phone every three minutes just because it's there. But I have a home office. And so I try to follow this little person. personal rule where I leave my phone in another room until lunch each day. And, you know, it's, I'm at home anyway. It's only 30 seconds away. It's just down the hallway. But I never go get it. And so I'm like, well, did I want it or not? You know, like in one sense, I wanted it because I would check it every three minutes if it was next to me. But in another sense, I never wanted it bad enough

to go work 30 seconds and walk down the hall and get it. And you'd be surprised how many bad habits fall into that kind of pattern that if you just increase the first. friction a little bit, the behavior sort of curtails itself. And so I think that's the first place to start is with environment design. Let's remove it from the environment entirely. So don't keep junk food in the house or, you know, something like that. Or let's just reduce exposure to it by reshaping the environment a little bit or unsubscribing from emails or whatever. And just those things are a good start. You know, tons of examples for social media stuff, turning off notifications or when you log out of the app, just delete the app from your phone.

So next time, if you want to log into Instagram, you have to download it again. And just that little bit of friction of having to go to the app store and wait a minute is often enough for you to realize, I don't really care about this. I'm just checking it because I got 10 seconds free. And you'd be surprised how many behaviors just doing that kind of stuff will help reduce to the desired level. I once heard Tim Ferriss say that he turns his phone on black and white. And so that way it's black.

So he picks up the phone. It's just like this little quick trigger to go like, oh, that's right. I'm not, I don't really need my phone right now. And I've used that on and off, but I like that idea. I haven't even set up on a short quote. If I click my button three times, it'll go black and white. And then it's just a, it's just a little bit of a cue there just remind me, hey, don't do that. I also got myself one of those I, you know, the Apple watches that have like the cellular.

So like the idea being I can still text, I can still call. It just adds this barrier that makes it annoying. So I rarely do it. It's just enough of a hassle that you're like, I'm not going to bother. Yeah, because I'm going to text somebody. I'm like, do the voice text, right? And I'm like, hey, I'll meet you at noon. And it says like, hey, look at the moon.

And I'm like, no, and I send the wrong one. In fact, it's trying to text right now just by me motion with my hand. So it's just enough of a hassle. And I'm like, I didn't really need to respond to that right now anyway. There are some really extreme examples. Like there's a product called the Kitchen Safe that is a Tupperware container. And it's programmable so you can lock the top. So, you know, I've talked to a variety of different people that wanted to curb late night snacking or something like that.

So after dinner ends, the, you know, Doritos and the chips and everything go in the kitchen safe and they lock it. And it won't open again until 7 a.m. the next day. So, you know, they're not going to eat anything before they go to bed. So there are ways to use technology like that. You know, ultimately, I think those things are short-term solutions. But they can all be helpful in kind of, you know, getting you toward the desired outcome. Yeah, you know, there's a, I don't know where this falls in this conversation, I guess, but I'll throw out the example anyway. For years, I would drink a peppermint hot chocolate every single day from Starbucks. Every day.

I mean, every single day, seven days a week through 65 for probably like three years. And then it was definitely a habit. Definitely like I needed it every day. It just was a thing. And then one day I looked at the sugar content of how much was sugar was in there. Right. And I realized there was more sugar in what I was drinking than a can of soda, a can of Coke. Now, I would make fun of people or laugh at like my dad who would drink a can of Coke or two every single day.

And I realized I was worse than my dad in terms of my sugar consumption for the same thing that I made fun of other people. And that day was my last pepper and hot chocolate other than I get one on Christmas now. I was never had any like no withdrawals or, I mean, there was no like it, my habit changed immediately because there was like this emotional. Maybe it's an identity thing, right? Maybe like something changed in me. And like so today I would say like media changes mindset a lot. or there's other things like if if something convinced me in my head and this wasn't really media but it's something that I was like ewe gross right and like it's deeper than just a I'm not going to buy

pepper and hot chocolate today I'm going to I'm going to have strong willpower something else changed there that made that no longer an issue and I just feel like if I could apply that to every area of my life I could build any habit or destroy it a habit and I haven't been able to fully repeat it with almost anything but that's one example of where I did yeah that's a I do think that's close to this kind of identity conversation we've had with the story that you tell yourself about what things mean. I don't eat that much sugar. Like that's ridiculous. It changed the meaning that you assigned to what a cup of peppermint hot chocolate was. It changed how you felt about, you know, the, yeah, the prediction that you made about whether that was enjoyable or useful, you know,

favorable or not. I, um, I, that's a real life example, which I love that you have that. I've often given this hypothetical example of like, imagine you walk into your, uh, kitchen in the morning and you see a loaf of bread and you're like oh make some toast for breakfast and you put it in you make it and whatever and you kind of do this throughout the you know every day and then you go read some diet book that convinces you that like carbs are terrible and grain is the devil and you should never you know like touched again and if you genuinely have that kind of mindset shift the next morning you walk in you see that loaf of bread and you don't think i should make toast you think i need to throw that out yeah and um people have those types of mindset shifts or epiphanies or whatever we want

to call that. Occasionally, it's rare. It's hard to bank on. But you are right. Like, if you could do that, if you could reassign the story in your head about what that habit means or about what that item signifies, then it'd be much easier to stick to a whole host of behaviors. And that's a very interesting example of how you were able to do it.

Yeah, I went vegan for a while or at least vegetarian. And the way I did it, I just like to make it not, I watched like three documentaries on Netflix about veganism. And like, I didn't, it didn't even care about meat for like a lot. Now eventually, I got kind of back. on us now I'm like a little bit of meat but like kind of like intentionally propagandized exactly exactly what that is I did that for my wife when we got into real estate investing there's a book called rich dad poor dad right by robert kiosaki and I really wanted her to read it because it changed my whole

mindset about money and saving and kind of like what people should do right so she didn't want to read it and so I traded her if she read twilight or if if I read twilight she would read rich dad portat so I read all of twilight and she read rich dad portat and immediately changed her mindset as well because like media the books you read, the podcast you listen to, it changes your mindset. And so you can kind of propagandize yourself. Is that a word? Propagandize yourself? You know, that's actually, pretty much every thought you have is downstream from what you consume. Yeah. And so in this case, you're talking about books or documentaries, which is obviously a crucial thing about selecting. But the real big one for all of us is social media. Yeah. And people don't think about it this way,

but when you choose who you follow on Twitter or Instagram or wherever, you're choosing your future thoughts. And we think, oh, I'm just following a celebrity or I'm following this person or whatever, but you're crafting the information flows that are going to be coming to you. You're crafting the content that you're going to see day in and day out. And so you are choosing your future mood and your future emotions and your future mindset. And I think we need to think much more carefully about who we select and who we follow because it's going to influence you in a much larger way than you think. That media changes mindset idea. I think. I think. is very powerful. I don't know. Yeah, it feels like so stupid because we feel like as humans,

we should just be able to make a decision, right? Like, why can't I just not eat the chips that are on the counter? Like, I posted a thing on my Instagram, some or we shared some meme the other day. It said, you'll never know how little self-control you have until you get to that Mexican restaurant with the chips and salsa. And I was like, that's totally true. I cannot not eat the chips and salsa because like I just lack the self-control. But while we can't necessarily, I don't I can't, but why don't change the action in the moment? Like you said, you can back up a step and change the queue. I can choose not. Like, it's easy for me to choose to go to a Mexican restaurant or not. I'm like, no, let's go here instead. But once I'm in that moment, it doesn't work anymore.

So, I mean, is that the key to self-control is just environmental change in that? Or some people just really good at just say no to the chips. I think it's the key long term. You can, you can overpower your environment for a day or week. Like you can do, you guys have already talked about some of these challenges and stuff. You do it for 30 days. You can not eat chips. salsa if that was like a big important thing for you. But in the long run, an environment overpowers your willpower. It's kind of like a form of gravity. It just pulls you toward. And, you know, the reason I think is fairly simple. I mean, we all have busy lives. We have multiple priorities. We got kids to take care of or parents to do favors for or, you know, things that are due at work

or organizations we volunteer for. There's a lot of stuff competing for your time and attention. And when you don't have capacity, when you're tired, when you don't have a ton of energy, when you are just pressed for time and need to make a quick choice, what do you do? You often choose the most obvious thing. You choose the path of least resistance. And so if the chips are on the table and you're hungry after a long day at work and you're chatting with friends, you just eat them because they're there. It's not because you are incapable of making the choice.

It's just that the energy has been spent in many other areas. So you can't choose something. You can't order a dish if it's not on the menu. And that idea, I think, can be applied to pretty much any environment. You know, like just shape the environment. And if it's not a choice there, then you don't have to worry about falling into it when you don't have energy and so on. So Ivy like environment design is a very powerful way to change behavior. And in the long run, yeah, it probably is the secret to self-control because environment tends to overpower your willpower and

disappoint. That's really good. I have an example of how that's sort of working out in my life right now. You guys want me to bear my soul in front of all 250,000 people. So Brandon and I recently started doing jujitsu. And when I say that, I mean like once every week or two, maybe less than that, actually. Not that often. But doing it is terrible. I'm not as good at it as I want to be. It is physically taxing and painful. It's humbling in a lot of ways. It's overall a really unpleasant experience for most of the time. But it triggers a part of me that I'm not going to quit it and I don't want to be bad at it.

So what happens is I start thinking I want to be in better shape. I want to have more energy. I want to be conscious of what I'm doing. I want to have more discipline. So the choices I was having a very hard time making regarding like, my diet. Like I know I should not eat. If I eat a sandwich in the middle of the day, I'll get in like a fog, and for five hours, I'll have no energy. I won't be able to think. But I always tell people, for the 23 hours and 59 minutes of the day, I have amazing willpower, except for the one minute when it's

actually time to make the choice of what I'm going to eat. And all of a sudden, that salad that I've told myself I'm going to eat all day, it turns into the sandwich. And knowing that I'm going to go train that day, I will not eat that sandwich because I'm thinking I'm not going to be sluggish when there's someone trying to pop my head off of my body, right? It makes it easier to make that choice. And the same thing goes with like, I really should get up an exercise today, but I don't want to. When I'm training for something, when I was going into the police academy, when I was playing a sport, now that I'm doing this, I know I'm going to be going to classes. That discipline required to go exercise or eat better becomes way easier. And so it really ties into what you're saying,

James that I put myself in a different environment and all of a sudden making better choices became a whole lot easier. Like there was some skin in the game as far as those choices I made. And I'm sort of talking out loud thinking that may be why when we say your environment will dictate how you act that we can make a conscious choice to put ourselves in the environment and being in the environment will lead to all the results we're talking about here. Two things that popped into my head as you were talking through that. So first is you joke about like having willpower for 12. 23 hours and 59 minutes, but then not for that one minute when you need to choose.

What you're really saying is you have willpower when you don't have to make the choice, which is actually more insightful than it might seem on the surface because what it's saying is if you're not surrounded by the choice, you're fine. You don't go seek it out. It's just when it's right in front of you. And that I think is one of the key points I'm trying to get at with the environment design pieces. Let's just remove that stuff.

If you don't, if you don't face the temptation, you don't have to worry about resisting it. And so, yeah, you can choose to reshape that environment in a way that reduces the temptations that you face. You don't have to worry about that one minute because now it's just 24 hours straight where you don't face it. Yeah, like, I was going to say, if David, like, I actually wanted this too, if you hired like a cook in your area, right, to make you seven lunches and they're pre-made and they're in your fridge ready to be warmed up every day. Like all of a sudden, it's there. You just change the environment. So you don't have to decide. It's already pre-done. I mean, that's there's, and that actually leads into kind of the second thing I was going to say, which,

is you know that this jiu-jitsu or whatever you're focused on is going to is important to you. And so once you know what you're optimizing for, a lot of the other decisions that used to be challenging are no longer challenging. It's easy to say no to it. Like imagine how much easier it is to say no to going to happy hour for an Olympic athlete versus like the average person who's just part of the team at the office. Well, the athlete is like, listen, this does not help me get closer to my goal. And they know what that vision is very clearly. And so saying no, to happy hours, like not even a sacrifice for them, really. It's just like, no, that doesn't make sense. It's only when you don't know what you're optimizing for that it becomes difficult to

delineate and to choose between these different options. And so in a sense, it's nice to have a priority to organize your life around. I'm not saying everybody needs to be as intense as an Olympic athlete, but it's just that the more clearly you know what you're optimizing for, the more decisions sort of naturally make themselves rather than you having to carefully choose. Yeah, it's amazing. how much easier those right quote unquote choices become when you have the goal. I think about people that struggle with saving. Most of my life, I was a really good saver. Spending money, I just didn't understand why people can't save money. It just didn't make any sense to me. But that's because I always wanted to invest in something. I was always saving to buy a car, saving to buy a house,

saving to do a thing. And I was tracking it. And I'm as we're talking, I'm realizing that's why that was so easy for me is I had a goal. whole time. For the people that are having a hard time saving, that might be exactly why it's tough is they don't have a reason. They're optimizing for immediate pleasure and improvement of their life. They're not optimizing for retirement or for 30 years from now. Or for the gratification they'll get from buying a house instead of renting one or owning an investment property or whatever it is that that goal is like I would think the minute that someone commits to, I'm going to buy a house in 22 or whatever. I need X amount of money. All of a sudden saying no to that new video game or

whatever it is that you like to spend money on. Just like you said, James, going to the bar, people spend 80, 100 bucks in a night just buying drinks, right? It makes no sense and they'll go do that type of thing. I think that becomes a lot easier when there's a goal. So now I'm wondering if the people I know that seem to have the least self-discipline are the same people that have the least clearly defined goals. I don't know for sure, but I think there's probably a connection. That's cool, man. All right. Well, we got to start kind of wrapping up things. Well, on the, maybe that's like last topic, I'm wondering, how do you view like goal setting? I kind of before we move to the famous forward.

What do you like, do you think it's good to have like, I got my annual goal. I got my, you know, it's the New Year's resolution. Where do you view that stuff? I think goals are necessary, but not sufficient for success. Instagram quote card right there. You know, let's take like, consider we just talking about Olympic athletes. Imagine any athlete at the Olympic Games. Presumably all of them have the goal of winning the gold medal.

But only one does. So clearly the goal is not the difference in their performance. Or if you have 100 candidates apply for a job, presumably all of them have the goal of getting the job. But only one person does. So you see this type of pattern again and again, which is in most domains in life, the winners and the losers often have the same goals. And so if they have the same goals but different outcomes, the goal cannot be the thing that makes a difference in their performance. And this is one of the reasons why I come back to habits so much. What is it that makes the difference?

If it's not the goal, it's usually the system that they're following. It's the collection of habits that they follow each day. And in fact, if there's a gap between your goal and your system, if there's a gap between your desired outcome and your daily habits, your daily habits will always win, right? Almost by definition, whatever system you've been running for, say, the last six months or year has carried you inevitably to the results that you have right now. And so, you know, if you want to change the outcome, you need to change the habits and change the system that you're following. Now, that doesn't mean that goals are useless. I think goals have quite a few use cases that are

very helpful for. The first one is what we've been talking about, clarity and knowing what you were optimizing for and so on. Second one is filtering. It's much easier to filter out opportunities and say know to stuff or say yes to certain things if you know what the goal is if you know is this going to be taking me closer to or further from the thing that's important to me so that's really helpful so my general approach is ties back to a couple different things we've talked about today already first let me try to envision the ideal outcome so i i'd like to use i like the phrase work backwards from magic what is the magical outcome going to be and then can i work backwards from there but i don't don't want to fix myself into only one line of thinking or only one path. I want to have multiple

pathways to the magical outcome, multiple pathways to a successful result. Because the truth is, you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know how things are going to play out. So I heard this framework recently. It comes from Sean Puri. He's an entrepreneur investor, but he calls it A, B, Z. So know your A, B, Z is where you are right now. B is your next step. Z is ultimately where you want to go. So I start at Z. Let me figure out where I want to go. Then you have to be honest about A, where am I right now? What do I actually have? What resources do I have?

What skills do I have? What is the truth of the situation? What's reality? And you actually don't need to know C through why. You don't need to know the rest of the steps. All you need to know is what is B going to be? What's my next step going to be? And can I take action right away?

And then I can just repeat that again. So now B has become A. This is the current spot. How can I do it one more time? And if you do that all the way and kind of keep revisiting Z and thinking backwards and is this taking me closer or further away. You can often do some really cool stuff just by trying to follow that. So that's kind of more generally how I think about goal setting. I think it's important to know where I'm heading, but I want the bulk of my attention focused on

the system and the habits and just going from A to B. Yeah, that's really, really good, man. Yeah, really good. When I think I'm like my real estate investment, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this example, but my real estate investment company, we buy like apartments in mobile home parks and stuff. Anyway, we had a goal for like in the three year goal like the Z was to buy 50 million dollars of real estate. But then we, you know, broke that down quarterly. And then more importantly, we set like these habits that. And I never thought about it in terms of habits until just today on this call. But that's really what they are. We have these habits that we do all the time. Did we contact this broker? Do we analyze this deal? Did we make this offer? These are

the habits that we just like track meticulously and make sure that we're accomplishing them to the point that they're a second nature from my team. And so like, you know, over the course of a year, we ended up buying that $50 million, which was awesome. But then what was crazy is like two weeks ago or three weeks ago now, we got $50 million under contract in a single week. So like my three-year goal just happened in a week. And when my team, we kind of all sat down going, what just happened? Like, how did this happen? And we realized, like it was literally just because like we did that exact A, B, Z kind of thing. We knew we were going. But then it was always like, okay, what's the, what's the habits? What's the A? What's the B? Okay, now we move the B to the A. And like, it's this

continual rhythm. Like you said, we focus on the systems. And it just, it's almost like laughable how like well this thing works. Yeah, majority of the world just doesn't operate that way. They operate on why didn't I lose the weight? Why didn't I buy the real estate thing? Why didn't I write the book? What I like about that is this general approach.

You kind of simultaneously have to hold these competing tensions in your mind, which is don't rush. You know, don't do things thoughtlessly. Don't think do things carelessly. But also don't wait. because waiting, it just, all it does is just reduces the amount of life you have left to accomplish these things. So you need to have this bias toward action, but you also need to be thoughtful about the process. It doesn't mean you're, you're not rushing around or doing things carelessly,

but you're never waiting longer than you need to. And so don't rush, but don't wait is, I think A, B, Z kind of aligns with that too. You know, like, you're not rushing because you know what Z is. You know what you're optimizing for, but you're not waiting. You're trying to go from A to B right now. That's really good. Yeah, I, I, I, I, I, I think. I think the phrase is going to stick out to me the most from today's interview is that what are you optimizing for? I love that concept. And I'm glad you brought that up because it's, yeah, what are you working toward and are the habits lined up to get you there? If people just thought more that way, man, man, the world would be a different place. So, thank you, man. Well, before we get out of here, we got a last segment of the show. And that is called our famous four. These are the same four questions we ask every week of every guest. So we're going to throw them at you right now. First question actually is very closely related to what you teach. So the question is, what is the current habit? or trait you're trying to develop or improve in your own life. I've been working out for a long time, but I have never worked out five days a week. I usually have done anywhere between two and four.

And for the last two months, I've been doing five days a week. So I have changed the style a little bit and trying to scale that up and just kind of make it more of a more of a daily thing than a, you know, every other day thing. Next question. What is your favorite business book? Hmm. There are a lot of good ones out there. I actually have one of my desk right now that I really enjoyed, which is called positioning. That's an old school.

It's like 80s or 90s. But it's all about how you position ideas or position products, how you package things. And I'm not going to say it's my favorite business book, but I do think it's important. It's what I'm thinking about right now. And as an example, so Atomic Habits has a section later in the book where I talk about deliberate practice. It could have been a book about deliberate practice where I talk about habits. but instead it was a book about habits where I talk about deliberate practice.

And I think the difference in how those two books would have sold is enormous. And it all has to do with how the book is positioned. I decided to position the book, the core topic around habit change and habit formation, rather than around deliberate practice. And I think that's key because most products that really do well tap into a desire people already have. You know, just by virtue of being part of society and growing up in society, you sort of know already that good habits are important or favorable and bad habits are unfavorable.

But if you're not familiar with the term deliver practice, it takes like 30 seconds to unpack it. And you don't get 30 seconds when people are looking at a book cover. That's too long. You've already lost them. So anyway, how you position your product, how you position your offerings, I think is really important. So not my favorite business book ever, but one that I think is important. I've been thinking a lot about recently. No, it's phenomenal.

I'm such a junkie for like frameworks and how you teach a concept that people are going to be able to grasp on to how you position it. So I'll pick up a copy of that book. Yeah, it's, it's huge. I mean, I literally wrote a book called How to Invest in Real Estate and then one called The Book on Rental Property Investing. Like, because I'm like, this is what people are searching for. This is what they want. And, you know, both of them are in the top, whatever, three of bestselling real estate books because like people, like, it just, it's how you present stuff. It's how you, the framework you lay out, which is why I love the atomic habits. You have just such good frameworks. So good job. Next question. Other than blowing Brandon and I,

minds during a podcast. What are some of your hobbies? I like weightlifting. I have a cabin in the woods and I love going to ATVing and hiking in the woods and hanging out out there. Pre-pandemic, love traveling and have done travel photography in over 40 countries now. And so I kind of like spent the last decade bouncing around and trying to do a lot of that. My two entry points into a culture when I visit someplace are photography. So I try to find like cool places to take a few pictures that kind of encapsulate the trip and food. So yeah, I would say those are kind of my main things that I find interesting and exciting outside of the work I'm doing. What's the best food in all of Columbus, Ohio? Like if you to pick one thing, if I'm going to go there for one dinner,

where do I go? This is not a famous four question, but it really depends on what you like, of course. Like, you know, if you, if you don't like Indian food, then I might have sent you to an Indian restaurant. But there are, yeah, there are a couple different ones that I would recommend. Barcelona is a really good one. Spanish place. Got. great paella. They have like a porch out there. You can just sit on. Well, it's nice. It's awesome. So I think you, uh, you'd be very happy with your dinner. I love asking food people those questions because I wanted to ask you for a favor, James, if you'd be so kind. We had Jocko Willink on the podcast and he forged Brandon to commit to doing

Jiu-Jitsu. And Brandon actually then had to do it, which I received the passive benefit of now that he has a personal trainer. I just jumped in with his guy and now I'm doing it. Can you get Braden to commit to weightlifting because he hates it, but I think he would be much happier if he would do it. No, no. Actually, let me speak to this. I wanted to bring this up earlier. I want to know your thoughts on this, James. So David said earlier, he's like, David said, when he does jiu-jitsu, it's hard, it's miserable. He struggles while doing it, but he knows it's good for him long term. So he's in there and he's like really like, like, it's terrible. He's out of breath. When I do jiu-jitsu, I said this to a buddy yesterday. I said every second is like

the best second of my life. When I'm doing it, I'm not, I love every second of it. I'm just, in there and I love it. It feels so light and easy for me. Now, I'm not making fun of David here because the exact opposite is true for David and I with weightlifting. I go to a gym. I hate every second of it. I go because I have to because I know I want to get mussely and I show up and I'll do it for a month maybe and then I'll stop again because I just don't love it. So I'm wondering like, how much like do you feel, I don't know if it's a habit question, but like, is that why I'll probably continue with Jiu-Jitsu for a long time and David won't? or can you muscle your way through something you don't like just because you want the outcome?

Look, it's hard to beat the person who's having fun, you know, because at some point, like, everything gets hard and the person who is still having fun doing the hard thing is going to want to do it for longer or more than the person who feels like it's a grind. And I think in a lot of ways, that's one of the central quests of living a good life is trying to figure out what is that thing that feels like fun to me, but it feels like work to other people. because if it feels like fun to you, then you know, you just get to keep doing it and showing up. And you often will stick with it long enough to develop better skills,

which then means you're winning, so to speak, more in whatever way that happens to be true for that thing. And usually when you're winning more, you also feel even better about it. So it's kind of this like positive feedback loop. The other thing I'll say about it is, I don't really care.

You guys should do whatever is exciting and, uh, you know, enjoyable for you. I think a lot of the time people assume like, oh, this guy writes about habits. he probably is judging me for which happens I'm doing. No, I like, I don't view it as my job

to, uh, to figure that out. So I'm happy to be helpful and give a toolkit, uh, that people can use. And it's like sometimes need a hammer and here's a strategy that can fit that. And sometimes need a screwdriver and here's a strategy that can fit that. But, um, I'm not here to judge. That's for sure. And so I say, uh, choose whatever form of a habit serves you. And, um, if you do that and you're having a good time, I'm happy to take that, David Green. My jocco angle gained zero traction. That had no impact. I was really hoping I could get a little,

get some hooks in there. Brandon, nobody's skinny likes lifting weights, okay? You just got to do it for a little while. I didn't like it either when I was really skinny all the time. Here's what I'm going to get so good at jujitsu. You won't get able to get me off of you.

And the only way is if you get stronger. All right. All right. All right. Last question from me of the day. And then David's got one final one. But what do you think sets apart successful? We'll say entrepreneurs.

from those who give up, fail, or never get started. If you could sum up all your advice, what makes somebody successful? Well, entrepreneurship is like this personal growth engine in disguise. You think it's about building a business, but actually you end up facing all of your own flaws and fears and worries and concerns. You're forced into having uncomfortable conversations. You're forced to realize not all of your ideas are good. And so you have to be self-aware in order to realize like where those holes are and what the gaps are. But more than anything else, I'd say you have to be willing to trust that you'll figure it out. Like it's just there's always some point on the curve just ahead of you that you don't have the

answer to. I mean, it's just the nature of running a business. Things are changing. The business is changing. There is no way that you can have it all mapped out ahead of time. So I think trusting yourself that you will figure it out as you go is probably the single biggest thing. Because the people who don't start, it's because they don't trust themselves. They feel like they need more information.

They feel like they need to have the answers. They need a playbook, whatever. And you can have some of that, but you're never going to have it all. And they're just always going to be things that have to be resolved as they arise. And so I think one way I heard it phrased recently is that some people are problem solvers and some people problem adders. And so with problem solvers, they look at like what is awesome about this situation. and then they resolve the problems as they arise. With the problem adders, they look at what could go wrong with this situation

and they dream up problems before they happen. And if you have that kind of mindset, then you're always going to be able to come up with reasons for why it's not the right time to start yet. But if instead you try to focus on the awesome bits and then you solve things whenever they need to be solved and trust yourself to figure it out along the way, then yeah, you got a shot.

It doesn't guarantee success, but I think you need that mindset. If you're adding on layers of complication and layers of problems to it, it's just going to make it way harder than it needs to be. That's good. All right. Last question in the day, James, where can people find out more about you? So if you enjoy the conversation, want to learn more about habits. Atomic Habits is probably the best place to start.

And you can find the book at Atomichabits.com. And if you just want to see more of my work generally, it's all at Jamesclear.com. And probably the best way to start or get into the work is to join 321, which is. is my weekly newsletter. So each issue has three ideas from me, two quotes from other people, and one question to think about during the week. It takes about two or three minutes to read, goes out every Thursday. I think like 1.2 million people subscribe now. So anyway, feel free to check it out and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening. By the way, man, three to one is another perfect example of like a framework or positioning. Like you have something cool, but people can wrap

their head around that and go, I want that. Like, I want that right now. I'm going to go sign up for right now. So very cool, man. You're awesome at this. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the opportunity. Great to talk to you. It was great. Thank you. Thank you, James. This is David Green for Brandon. Do you even lift bro Turner? Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for Real Estate Investing Online.

Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only.

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