EntreLeadership - #302: Atomic Habits with James Clear

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

If you tend to blame yourself for your bad habits, New York Times best-selling author James Clear says you’re wasting your time. Not only does such behavior create feelings of guilt—which, by the way, are pretty counterproductive—but it also does nothing to get you any closer to achieving your goals. Tune in to hear James explain the real cause of bad habits (translation: You’re off the hook!), as well as some super easy strategies to help you break them and replace them with good ones. We think you’ll be amazed at how even the tiniest change can lead to really remarkable results.   entreleadership.com/podcast Buy the book and get free bonuses: Atomic Habits Download a chapter of Atomic Habits 7-Day Plan to Triple Your Productivity Free worksheet from Belay Solutions: Things to Delegate to Save 15 Hours This Week   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, and this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Here's what we've got coming up for you today. Our feature conversation is with James Clear.

He is an author of a book called Atomic Habits. Tiny changes, remarkable results. This is a timely conversation as you launch into a new year. And then I'm going to share with you a simple principle that changed my career trajectory. So if you're somebody who wants to move up the career ladder this year, I'm going to give you a golden little principle from my journey. And then we've got some free stuff as always. Speaking of free stuff, this is kind of exciting. Longtime friends, Brian and Shannon Miles, of Belay, they've been on the program before.

In fact, not too very long ago, they are the best of the best when it comes to virtual assistance and specialists to help you grow your business. They've really become the industry leader. And so they understand a lot of things about efficiency. Specifically, they said, hey, this worked for us. We want to give it to your audience. Five things to delegate to save 15 hours this week. very simple worksheet and it allows you to get in the headspace you need to get into.

I checked it out before we started the program today. Really simple stuff and it will allow you to delegate five things that are going to save you a minimum of 15 hours this week, next week, and the week beyond. Why wouldn't you try this for 30 days? I mean, and did I mention that it's free from some friends of ours who are authors and who are actually winning in this area and helping a lot of people win. So thanks to Brian and Shannon Miles. This is really cool.

We love the free stuff around here. I wish you could take credit for this one. I am a man of the people, but this was not my idea. I wish it was. I think you should use it. Jump on that. The link for this worksheet is in the show notes. So you just go to Entreeleadership.com, click on podcast, go to this show, and we'll have a link for this great download in the show notes.

By the way, if you'd like to learn more about Brian and Shannon, you miss them on this program. They are our guests on episode 247, so you get a little extra bonus content there. All right, and coming up, we're going to have another free resource from our team here at Entree Leadership to help you triple your productivity. So a lot to get to. Let's get going. James Clear is my guest. The book is Atomic Habits, Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. Here's the conversation.

Well, James, good to have you with us. Excited about this conversation. I don't think we can ever talk enough about habits. I was really intrigued by the title of the book. You know, I've interviewed Charles Duhigg on this show. obviously is a well-known book on habits. And when I saw Atomic, I got to tell you, it really snapped in my neck a little bit.

Why the word atomic before we dive into the content? So I chose the phrase atomic habits for three reasons. So the first meaning of the word atomic, which a lot of people might expect is like tiny or small, like an atom. And that's a core part of my philosophy that habits should be small and easy to do. The second meaning of the word atomic, though, and the one that's often overlooked,

is the fundamental unit in a larger system. So like atoms build into molecules, molecules built into compounds and so on. And I think in a sense, we could sort of say that habits are kind of like the atoms of our lives. You know, they're like these little routines that you repeat each day. And when you put them all together, you end up with this larger system of your daily routine. And then the third and final meaning is the source of immense energy or power. And I think if you combine all three of those meanings, you understand the narrative arc of the book, which is if you make changes that are small and easy to do,

and you layer them on top of each other like units in a larger system, then you can end up with some really powerful and remarkable results in the long run. There is great stuff. And I got to tell you, I was really intrigued in starting to do research on the book and read that I think a real unique selling point that you have here in helping people understand how to win and change habits is that you say, hey, if you're having trouble or you've got some bad habits, it's not you, it's your system. I think that's what makes this book really unique.

And I want you to take your time and unpack that. Wait a second, James. You're telling me my bad habit. It's not my fault. It's my system. What does that mean? The standard narrative about habit change, success, performance improvement, achieving a goal, is that you need to set a goal and that you need to try really hard.

And if you haven't achieved that, then it's because you don't have the willpower or the grit or the perseverance. and we tell ourselves these kind of internal narratives all the time too, you know, like, oh, maybe if I really wanted it, then I'd achieve it. But what you find is that the deeper you study human behavior, the more that you see that so many of the actions we take each day are simply a response to the system that we find ourselves inside. And so the argument that I make in the book is that what you need to change is not necessarily your goal, but your system. The phrase that I'd like to use is, we do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. And so if you can restructure the system or the environment you find yourself in, whether that means changing your physical environment. So we can talk some about that, like the things on your desk at work or your kitchen counter at home.

Changing your social environment, the people that you're surrounded by and the habits that are normal in your particular tribe, whatever that group happens to be. Changing your approach and the habits you're asking yourself to build. So you can keep your lofty ambitions and goals, but breaking them down. to something that's easy to do. Finally, selecting a strategy that fits well with your particular makeup, with your personality, your genes, your circumstances, so that you essentially match your environment to your natural strengths. And all of those are examples of a way to build a better system, of a way to create a system that promotes good habits effortlessly and sort of lets you achieve your goals as a natural consequence of being a good system, rather than

saying it's all about the goal. Let me focus on this milestone and work hard toward that. Yeah, and I think what I'm seeing here when I was reading this is, I think, you correct me if I'm wrong, there's a real psychological benefit here with the way you're approaching this. Because if I make it about me, if my bad habits are about me and I'm not making change and I'm not seeing progress, I can get down on myself and then the voice turns into, you know, from doubt to just, all right, I'm resigned to the failure here, whereas what you're talking about, the system can really help us. And in return, the win there is much more momentum because psychologically we're experiencing that win. Is that correct? So one of the most effective feelings, one of the

most motivating states is the feeling of progress. And if you're focused on feeling guilty, blaming yourself for not improving, feeling like, oh, I'm not able to build better habits because that something's wrong with me, that's not a very productive state to be in. Whereas if you shift it and say, all right, the problem is not me. The problem is the system. And if I'm going to change the system, then I can do X, Y, and Z. And we can talk about a variety of those strategies. But each time you do that, you take action and you build progress and momentum.

And so I think it is a much more productive way to approach the process of change because it gives you something to actually work on. I mean, all the rest of these strategies, a lot of the time, it's about stuff like, you know, think positive or fake it until you make it or stuff like that. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Like certainly if you want to think positive, it sounds better than thinking negatively. But my focus is much more on practical action steps.

How can we make the process of behavior change actionable and give you something to do to design a system where you're more likely to succeed? And so I think that's just a better place to spend your time and energy. Okay, let's take a few. And you take this where you would like to. Obviously, you're the habit guy and you've written about this. But let's just pick one that for our audience, I think it kind of hits most of us. We certainly understand it, even if we don't have a particular bad habit here in this area.

But let's just talk about we're not eating right or we're not exercising at all. I think we all acknowledge, okay, eating poorly and not exercising, not the best for us. So you take either one, I don't care, but I really want you to take us here, where if we were sitting down with you, if we all had that privilege of sitting down with you, oh, James, good grief. Okay, I acknowledge it's not me. but please help me come up with the system. What would that look like? So there's a lot to cover here,

but I'll just dive into a few different areas and pause and you can let me know which ones you want to expand on. So first step, I think a good place to start is by scaling your habits down. So I recommend using what I call the two-minute rule. And the basic idea is you take whatever habit you're trying to build, whatever lofty ambition you have, and you scale it down to something you can do in two minutes or less.

So if we take health and fitness habits, then something like do yoga, four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. Or I had one reader who he ended up losing over 100 pounds. And early on, he did something that was very counterintuitive, which is he drove to the gym every day. He went like four or five days a week. But he was only allowed to stay for five minutes.

He had to leave at five minutes. And sounds silly to people at first because they're like, well, that's ridiculous. That's not going to help him lose weight. But what you realize is that he was becoming the type of person that showed up every day. And this is a key thing. And whenever you're building a new habit, you need to master the art of showing up. And so he would drive, get out of the car, do half an exercise, get back in the car and drive home. And the insight here that people often overlook is that a habit must be established before it can be improved.

You need to make it the standard in your life before you can worry about optimizing it. And this is the opposite of what we often do, right? Like people look for the ideal workout program, the best diet plan, the perfect business idea. and we're so wrapped up in this vision of perfection that we don't give ourselves permission to just foster a new identity and become the type of person that shows up. So that's the first step

is scaling your habits down using that two-minute rule. And the next thing that I would say, a good place to start is with what I call environment design. And so the basic idea here is I'm talking about the physical environment and you're looking to restructure it so that your good habits are more obvious and available and frictionless. and your bad habits are invisible and hidden and have a greater degree of friction.

So let me give you a few different examples related to health and wellness. So a lot of people feel like they're too sedentary, like they sit on the couch and watch too much television or Netflix or whatever. But if you walk into pretty much any living room, where do all the couches and chairs face? Like they all face the TV. So what is that room designed to get you to do? And there are a variety of steps you could take here when it comes to environment design, but you could like take the chair and turn it away from the TV and then maybe put a book on the,

you know, on the end table where the remote used to be. You could hide the TV inside like a wall unit or a cabinet so that you're a little less likely to see it. You could also increase the friction of the task. So, you know, you could like take the batteries out of the remote control so that it takes an extra of five to 10 seconds to turn the TV on. And maybe that's enough time for you to be like, do I really want to watch this or am I just, you know, mindlessly turning it on?

you could unplug the TV after each use and then only plug it back in if you can say the name of the show that you want to watch. So you can't just like turn Netflix on and find something. And of course, if you really want to be extreme, you can take the TV off the wall and put it in the closet and only set it back up when you want to watch something bad enough to set it up. Or I had one reader who she and her husband felt like they were watching so many sporting events that they decided they just were going to get rid of their TV. And their new metric was if we don't care enough to drive forward. 15 minutes to the sports bar to watch it, then we don't really want to watch it. And there are similar things throughout the rest of the house, right?

Like you've got television that's in the bedroom, you know, take the TV out of the bedroom and that'll curtail the habit. And then other health habits like, for example, for eating more fruit or eating healthy snacks rather than munching on things that are unhealthy. When I was doing this,

we would buy, my wife and I would buy apples and we would put them in the bottom of the fridge and the crisper. And I would forget that they were there. Yeah. And then they go bad, like two weeks later, and I'd be all annoyed that we're wasting money and wasting food and so on. And so I went and bought a big display bowl and put it right in the middle of the counter and we store the fruit there. And now they're gone in like three days just because they're visible.

And you can do the same thing with like storing almonds and nuts inside a clear container on the counter and then keeping unhealthy things tucked away, like in the corner or the highest shelf in the pantry. There was one story I liked from Stanford professor. His name is B.J. Fogg. He writes about habits as well. he enjoyed eating popcorn. He didn't want to get rid of it entirely, but he just didn't want to eat as much of it. And so he took the popcorn out of the pantry,

walked down the hallway, went into the garage, climbed on the ladder, and put it on the highest shelf in the garage. So if he wants it, he can just go get it. It's only 60 seconds away. But if he's feeling lazy, if he's exhausted after a long day at work, he's not going to go out and get it.

That's really what this core environment design strategy is about, is can you make the good options, the path of least resistance, and the bad habits, less obvious, less visible, less easy. And therein lies the system. So the system helps us and it begins the shift. And there is real momentum here, isn't there? What have you found from your readers and some of your studies here on the sheer momentum

when we begin to put these systems into place? And the brain begins to take over, does it not? Well, there are two different ways that you're kind of building momentum here. So the first is what I would just call like, I like to refer to habits as the compound interest of self-improvement. So the same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them across time. Right. So like, you know, you save $100 for retirement this month. It doesn't really feel like a whole lot.

It's easy to dismiss it. It's like, why can't retire on that? So, you know, it's easy to say, why bother? But if you can stick to that habit, you turn around a decade or two or three later and all of a sudden you hit that hockey stick portion of the curve. And basically, it's a hallmark of any compounding process. All the greatest returns are delayed. And habits, they're not exactly like that, but man, it feels like that a lot of the time. You know, you like show up and you start to run and you turn around a month later and you're like,

man, I've been running for a month. Like, how come I don't see any change in my body? But similar to compound interest, all the greatest returns are delayed. And so if you turn around two or five or ten years later, you realize, wow, those little one percent choices, slightly better or slightly worse, they really do make a difference. So the first way that you build momentum by making these little changes is that making a one percent change, whether that's the way that your TV is laid out or where you store the apples or scaling your habit down, sticking to something for only two minutes each day. They seem insignificant

by themselves. But the holy grail of habit change is not a single 1% improvement. It's like a thousand of them. You know, you start making these little ones and it's like, oh, maybe I could try this too. Pretty soon they compound and you end up with some very remarkable results in the long run. And then the second way that the momentum builds up is that often these habits will ripple into other areas of your life. You know, like my keystone habit, one of my core habits is working out. And I get the benefits of exercise when I do that. But there are all kinds of other things that happen too.

Like I sleep better at night because I'm tired from the workout, which means I wake up the next morning and I have more energy because I'm well rested. I get this kind of post workout high for like an hour or two where I have better focus. I tend to eat better when I work out. You would think, well, maybe you could just like let it slide. But my thought for whatever reason when I work out, I feel like, oh, I don't want to waste it. And at no point was I trying to build better nutrition habits or sleep habits or energy habits,

but all that came as like a side effect of making those small changes. So there's progress both in the long run with sticking with the habit and letting those 1% gains accumulate and compound over time. And then there's also progress in the short run with the momentum of making a positive change rippling into other areas of your life. Yeah, this is, it really does begin to yield. a lot of compound interest in multiple areas. I love the book. I want to tease some of it here, let you teach a little bit here.

There's a four-step model of habits. And I think you've talked about some of these, but I just wanted to throw them at you and let our listeners here get a sense of how this model of habits leads to the four laws of behavior change that you illustrate in the book. Q, craving response and reward. Just walk us through those four models. I think this is one of the most effective ways to look at human behavior, to look at a habit, and honestly, probably most human behaviors, to understand what's going on when you take an action. The first stage is the cue, which is just something that catches your attention.

Humans are very visual creatures, so often it's visual. It doesn't have to be, it could be, you know, like your phone buzzing in your pocket. That's like touch. It could be any of the senses. But let's say you walk into a kitchen and you see a plate of cookies. That is that visual cue is the thing that prompts the habit of eating. cookies. So first there's a cue. The second stage is the craving. Now, I use the word craving, but what I really mean, I mean it kind of in a broader sense. I mean the prediction your brain

makes about what to do next. It's like the way that you interpret the cue. So let's say that you have two people and they walk into a room and there's a pack of cigarettes on the table. One of them, let's say they're a smoker. They see that and they interpret that cue as I should have a cigarette. right? There's like immediately a craving that follows seeing the cue. But another person, they see the pack of cigarettes and they've never smoked one in their life. And so to them, it's relatively meaningless. It's just kind of neutral. And so the way that you interpret the cues in your life determines how you respond to them. So that's the second stage, craving. The third stage is the response, which is the thing you actually do. So, you know, doing a push up or smoking the cigarette

or eating a cookie. And then finally, there's some kind of reward, which is the fourth stage. And all habits serve us in some way, you know, like in many cases, bad habits serve you in the moment, but don't serve you in the long run. So like eating a donut right now is great. It's sugary. It's sweet. It's enjoyable. But if you repeat that habit for two months or six months or a year, then the ultimate outcome is unfavorable. With good habits, it's often the reverse.

And this is one reason why it's hard for them to stick because behaviors need to feel rewarding in the moment. They need to have some kind of positive emotional signal. associated with them, for the brain to feel like, oh, hey, this was good. I should do this again next time. With good habits, it's often like, you know, you go to the gym, it's effortful, you sweat, it requires sacrifice. And so it's a little bit unfavorable in the moment. But if you stick to that habit, in the long run, two months or six months or a year later, it's very enjoyable and you get the results that you're looking for. And so with good habits, a lot of the challenges, can we find alternative ways to be satisfied immediately while we're waiting?

for those long-term rewards to accumulate. But that's a quick summary of that four-stage process, cue, craving, response, and reward. And those lead to the laws. I just want our listeners to see what we're going to be reading here in the book. Folks, you need to get this. The first law is make it obvious. Second law, make it attractive. Third law, make it easy.

Fourth law, make it satisfying. One of the things I like about this book, James, is I don't feel like you're making this out like it's a hack. You know, you hear that a lot with habits, you know. This isn't about tricking ourselves. This is literally what it gets back to, which I think is the power of this, is the system. So if we look at areas of life, just curious because we have high-performing men and women listening here. Many are running companies. Some are in leadership.

Some are just personal growth junkies. When you look across human behavior and the human performance, the system in each area, what buckets would you say, all right, if I'm coaching your audience, Ken, I'm going to say they need to be thinking about this bucket, this bucket, this bucket. this bucket, so that they begin to do a wholesale assessment of systems or the lack of systems in every area of their life, the key areas. What would you say would be the key areas that you would coach us on doing an assessment with? First of all, you're right. This is not a hack. This is really about atomic habits is about understanding how behavior works at like a deep scientific level. And then once you have that baseline, figuring out which levers to pull, so to speak, you know, it looks at like, why do any behaviors stick? In this,

way like bad habits can actually be very instructive because bad habits form readily you know like you probably never had to ask yourself like how can I get in the habit of checking my cell phone more you know like it just it happened naturally and so when I look at behaviors and analyze them like that my first question is why you know like what is it about that that makes it so sticky and can we take some of those lessons and apply them to building good habits so that's just kind of more broadly speaking like the framework and how I approach the problem but your question is about what buckets to focus on is a good one. So I think there are a couple ways to answer this question. So the first thing that I would say is if you're in a business context, one of the best

ways to approach this and applying the four stage framework that we just kind of hinted at is to essentially map out the chain of behaviors that your company or your project is focused on and then try to figure out where to apply that to each link in the chain. So for example, the third law behavior change, which is all about response, is make it easy. Okay. So it's about reducing friction. It's about making it more convenient. Similar to the example I gave of the two-minute rule, you take something that was big and you scale it down, make it simple. So let's apply that in a business context here. So let's say that it's 10 years ago and your Uber or Lyft or one of these ride sharing apps. And so you're thinking about making this app related to transportation.

Well, if you map out the chain of behaviors that people are, they experience, it might look something like this. You say, okay, somebody is in a building and they need to get a ride. across town. So first thing, they got to go out on the sidewalk. They got to put their arm up, hail a cab. Then they get into the cab. They go through traffic. They get to their destination. They have to take their wallet out and pay. And then they get the change back. They get out of the cab and they go on their way. And so you've just listed like five or six different points in that behavior chain. And then you can ask yourself, like, can we make any of those easier? Right. Third law, make it easy. Can we make any of them more convenient, more frictionless? So you could say,

all right, well, first step, people have to go outside and hail that cab. Well, what if it's raining or what if it's snowing or what if it's gross out? What if they are in a meeting and they're running late and they don't have that much time when they get to the curb? And so you might say, well, what if we put an app on their phone and they could just hail it right there from inside? That wouldn't even have to be outside. That sounds more convenient. And then they get in the car. You're like, all right, well, you know, we can't make traffic go faster. So I guess we could come up with like good maps or something, but there's not a whole lot to do there. So then they get across town. Then you have another point friction, right? They have to pay for the cab. You're like, well, we already have this app on their

phone. What if we could just preload their credit card information and they don't have to exchange it. They don't have to take out change. They don't have to wait to get it back or get a receipt. They can just get out of the car as soon as they get there. That sounds like it's frictionless. And so little things like that allow you to create a better product to give you a way to like map this four stage framework onto the projects that you're working on. So that's the first example. And then the second way to apply it is to think more about your personal life. And for this case, I think there are a couple big buckets that we can talk through and focus on. I'll just hit the hit at them at a real high level and you can tell me which ones you want to

dive into. So we already talked about physical environment, but that's a big one. Social environment and the tribes that you're a part of is another big one, both personally and professionally. And then also technology and automation. So those three areas, I would say, those are good places to focus for making some of these initial changes. You've detailed this out. This is how we get in and assess our systems and really, really think through it. I do want to have you just for a bit. We'll move on.

But I do want you to talk about, you know, the idea of the people you're hanging around. You said social networks. Yeah. You know, because high achievers, I don't know that anybody would disagree with this fact that so much of the habits and the performance in your life are affected by the people you hang around. You know, it's just a reality. We may all have the lovable goofball that we stayed friends with forever, right? But we didn't hang out with that guy for the last 20 years as we moved on from high school. Speak to the importance of systems and habits around people that are going to push us and pull us.

Again, let's come back to the scientific basis. So all humans have this deep, primal desire to belong. Our ancestors are living in tribes, and if you were abandoned by the tribe, it was a death sentence, right? Like we want to fit in, we want to belong, we care about what others think of us, because for many years, it helped us if others thought well of us. And still, it does today, right? But it was literally a death sentence if you didn't belong for a long time. And so today, we inherit that desire. We have that same desire to belong.

And as a result, we are part of many tribes. And some of those tribes are large, like what it means to be American or what it means to be a French or Australian or whatever. Or some of those tribes are small, like what it means to be a neighbor on your street, or to be a member at your local CrossFit gym, or to be a volunteer at the elementary school. But all of those tribes, large and small, have a set of shared expectations for how you act in that group. And you can see this in all sorts of habits, you know, like you get onto an elevator and you're expected to turn around. and face the front. Or you have a job interview and you wear something nice, like a suit and a tie or a dress. Now, there's no reason that it has to be like that, right? Like, you could face the back of the elevator. You could wear a bathing suit to a job interview. But we don't do that because it

violates the expectations of that group of the people that are in the room, that tribe. And this is true for many of our habits. When habits and behaviors allow you to fit in to belong with the group, they're very attractive and we want to stick with them. And when habits force you to stand out or stick out or cast out from the group, then they're very unattractive and we want to avoid them. And so the key insight here, I think this is where we take this from like this scientific basis to a more practical application, is you want to join tribes,

you want to join groups where the desired behavior is the normal behavior. And I think a lot about my own entrepreneurial experience when I think about this because when I started, I didn't have any entrepreneurs in my family. I didn't even really have any that were close friends. I had one guy that I knew from high school who was a DJ, but I feel like everybody has someone in high school that knew who were a DJ. You know, it's like, so it wasn't really, it wasn't really much of an advantage. But my point here is that I needed to build that tribe.

And so the, you want to join a group with their desired behaviors, the normal behavior. So I had to send probably three, 400 emails over the first six months. I was just asking other entrepreneurs who had already, succeeded at what I was trying to do if they wanted to chat on Skype for an hour. Most of them said no, but by the time I got to the end of those six months, I had maybe 30 or 40 people who had said yes, who I had chatted with. Now I had a tribe that I could go to with questions. And this funny thing happened because I, you know, I thought it was really, it was strange enough to me to build a business, but to build a really successful one seemed like,

it seemed like it was for other people, right? But once I got to know some of those folks, Once they became friends, not only did it not seem like it was for other people, it just seemed like it was normal. It seemed like that's what all the people around me were doing. And so you kind of soak up all of these habits and behaviors, these philosophies and thought processes. I guess we could call it both habits of thinking and habits of acting from the people that you're surrounded by. And that's true, not just for my business example. It's true for anything, you know, like if you hang out with a bunch of jazz musicians, then playing music five nights a week probably sounds normal to you. even though most people don't do that.

And it works like that in pretty much any area. So the key insight here is that we imitate the habits of those around us. So by shaping the tribes that you belong to, you often shape your habits just by imitation. Yes. Great point. So glad you said that. That is absolutely, if you heard nothing else in this entire interview, that last sentence, folks, you ought to tweet it, you ought to write it down and look at it.

I think it's absolutely invaluable. James, I want you to tell folks, it's a great book. I just think it's fantastic. A lot of good stuff here. Obviously, we couldn't cover the entire book, so we didn't try. But the appendix has got a lot of great stuff. I'm sure you've got some resources. I want you to tell our listeners and those who are viewing what you want them to do. They read this book. What do you want them do next? What are you offering them other resources so they can make the most out of this fantastic book? Yeah, thank you so much. So honestly, the biggest thing is people listen to interviews like this or will read a book. And that's great. It's great. It's great to educate yourself, but the single biggest thing that I would like people to do is just take one idea and implement it. You know, like to use the two-minute rule, if nothing else, just try to do something for two minutes or less, read one page, write one sentence, meditate for 60 seconds, whatever habit is you're trying to build. And just do that, just master the art of showing up.

And if you can do that for a week, then you've got some good momentum going. As far as the book itself, there are quite a few resources that come with it. So the book is called Atomic Habits. You can get it at Atomichabits.com. On that page, I also have some additional downloads and guides. So there's a guide on how to apply the ideas in the book to business. There's a guide on how to apply the ideas in the book to parenting. There is a habit tracker template and some other resources as well.

But anyway, all of that is at Atomichabits.com. And as a father of three, folks, for those of you who listen to this program for non-parenting content, don't forget you're still a parent. This stuff is good. I know it's going to be applied in the Coleman household. So really good stuff, James. Again, the book Atomic Habits, Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. James Clear, thank you so much for being with us. We're better for our time with you.

Wonderful. Thank you. All right, hope you enjoyed James Clear. Again, one more time, the book is entitled Atomic Habits, Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results. All right, I'm going to share something with you very briefly. I'm so excited to give you something that can literally change. your career trajectory can help you demystify the climb up to your Mount Everest. Whatever that dream job is, it can be at times paralyzing because you look up that high and you then look down to where you're at in the moment and all of a sudden you go, oh my gosh, I don't know if I have what it

takes. I don't know if I know how to get there. And if I know how to get there, can I get there? And it's intimidating and it'll lock you up. And so I'm going to give you a simple principle that is from my journey. It is timeless and it's not just exclusive to me. Any successful man and woman I know has practiced this principle. What is it? It's the proximity principle. What is the proximity principle? I'm glad you asked. The proximity principle is simply this. In order to do what I want to do, I've got to be around people that are doing it and I've got to be in places where it is happening. So in my journey, it was broadcasting. So what is it for you? In order to be around people that are doing it. In order to do what you want to do, you have to be around people that are doing it and you've got to be

around places where it is happening. How does it work? Very simple. When you get around people that are doing what you want to do, you get to learn by observing, by following if they teach you. Okay, so you get to learn. And then you get to do. That's right. At some point when you're around the right people, you're going to get to do some of what they're doing. They're going to guide you to the right places where you get to do, okay? And then you get to connect. So proximity allows me to learn, it allows me to do, and it allows me to connect. Let me say it again. Proximity to the right people and the right places allows me to learn what I need to learn, do what I want to do, and connect. And so this is how you move up the ladder. It's very simple. So when I'm around the right people,

guess what happens? They tell me, show me, open doors for me to get in the right places. So now when I'm in the right places, guess what happens besides learning, doing, and connecting? I'm meeting more of the right people. You see how this works? So when I'm in the right places, I'm meeting the right people. I'm putting myself around the right people. When I'm around the right people, they help me get in the right places. And by the way, this is not a principle that is exclusive for somebody who's starting out.

I'm living the dream. I'm in my dream job, and I'm still practicing the proximity principle. So no matter where you're at, you need to always be intentional to find and get around the right people. People who you admire, people who are winning in your space, people who will push you, people who will keep you accountable. Are you tracking with me, folks? And then I need to be in the right places. Places where I can learn, places where I can observe, places where I can do, places where I can practice, places where I can perform, whatever your situation. is you've got to put yourself around the right people and in the right places. And if you take

the truth of this very, very simple principle and you apply it daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, yearly, here's what I can tell you. You will never, I want to say this very clearly, you will never want for opportunity. Now, if you practice the proximity principle, you have opportunity coming at you like you're standing at a train station. And if you've ever been in a train station in New York City, baby, they just keep on rolling. And this is what life will be life for. So then you're going to say, oh, what's the right opportunity? But the proximity principle is going to get you in a place where opportunity is coming at you on a regular basis.

And that is absolutely guaranteed. So there you go. A little thing called the proximity principle. And how about a teaser? Can I tease this? Coming up here right around the corner. It'll be here before we know it. that is a book that I've just sent to the typesetter.

So the proximity principle coming to a bookstore near you, but let me tell you something. Even if you don't buy the book and you should, if nothing else, buy it for somebody else. I'm going to introduce you to five people, five places, but I just gave you the secret right there, and it really, really works. All right, I told you about Entree leadership and the team bringing you a plan to triple your productivity. How about doing it in seven days? Are you kidding me? By the way, this tool has been very popular for a very long time here. So if you're new to our program, do what tens of thousands of other entree leaders have done. Download this.

Why? Because it's free. Because I said so. And a lot of other people have done it. It works. I really don't need to sell you on this. If you think right now that you are productive enough, then you are suffering from reality deprivation syndrome and you need to go see a counselor. For the rest of you who are honest and self-aware, and you have a lot of you have,

If you haven't downloaded this, you might should download this. I think it would be a good idea. Seven-day plan to triple your productivity. We have the link for you in the show notes at Entreeleadership.com. And while you're there, don't forget, our friends at Belay are giving you a worksheet that will go beautifully with this productivity plan, five things to delegate to say 15 hours this week. So go, go, go, and grow, grow, grow. All right, folks, that's going to do it on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make sure that you're aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions.

Here's a sample of the Chris Hogan Show. I am so excited to be able to talk to you all week in and week out. We're going to talk about your money, your life, your dreams, and your goals. You know why? Because I'm your coach. Whether we're talking about building wealth, paying off your home early, investing, paying for college, and guess what? How to become an everyday millionaire.

We're going to focus on taking your calls because you matter to me. Together, we can do this. This is the Chris Hogan Show. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search the Chris Hogan Show in Apple Podcasts or go to chrishogan 360.com.