The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 428: James Clear - Asking Better Questions, Taking Action, & Doing A+ Work

Starting point is 00:00:01 The way to really learn something is to do it. And reading about it or watching a YouTube clip or listening to a podcast or whatever, like consuming is fine if it is in service to the thing that you're trying to do, if it is enriching or enhancing the action that you're taking. However, consuming is not that useful and it's kind of just a crutch or a form of procrastination if it's a substitute for acting. And I think a lot of the time, planning becomes its own form of procrastination. And we start researching and we start digging in and we want to learn more and we think, oh, I don't quite know enough yet. And you just keep spinning your wheels researching and researching. It's not enhancing your actions. It's substituted for them.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Welcome to The Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 44222 to become part of mindful. Monday. You along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book, Welcome to Management will help you become a more effective leader. Text learners to 44222. Now, on to tonight's feature leader. My friend the great James,

Starting point is 00:01:35 clear is back. He's the author of Atomic Habits, a book that has sold more than four million copies and has spent years, yes, years on the New York Times bestseller list. James is a fellow Ohioan and someone that I was fortunate to record a live show with just prior to Atomic Habits being released. As you can tell, I'm a big fan of this work. A few of the topics we discuss. The three most useful questions to ask yourself each day. And then the difference between problem solvers and problem adders and how you can become known as an action-oriented problem solver. And then the number one skill that most leaders do not develop but should. Ladies and gentlemen, another great one. It's James Clear.

Starting point is 00:02:37 Dude, okay, I got to start. I remember having lunch at North Star Cafe with you in Columbus, Ohio. We were preparing to record a live podcast together in front of an audience. It was awesome. And at the time, you said, the title of my new book that's going to come out in about a year or so is called Atomic Habits. What do you think? And I was like, okay. I mean, a title doesn't mean as much until you see the work.

Starting point is 00:03:06 And I think back to that day, man, when we're having lunch, just having a good time. Your book's not out. You still, I think we're one of the most prolific writers in the planet, one of the ones I followed the most. But I don't know, not everybody realized that yet because the book wasn't out, although you did build a massive platform prior to the book coming out. So I'm just curious, man, when you think back to that moment and then fast forward to today in 2021, man, I mean, that is just a wild few years. Yeah, it has been a crazy few years.

Starting point is 00:03:39 I don't know. I'm very fortunate that it played out the way that it has. And I'm, whenever I sit down to write, I try to provide the most value possible. And, you know, I'm not necessarily worried about saying something that's new, but I'm very worried about saying something that's useful. And I think that the only reason people would recommend a nonfiction book like Atomic Habits is because they feel. find it really useful because they are getting some value out of it. So the fact that it's spread and a lot of people have read it at this point is hopefully a signal that, you know, I was able to hit the mark and the book is helping people and it's useful to them. So that that's probably the main

Starting point is 00:04:17 thing I think about. The other thing just specific to that little memory or that day is it's funny how unsure I was about title and subtitle and, you know, because I did what I was doing with you that day. Like I tested it on like everybody I ran into. You know, I had a set of, I don't know. I had a set of like, well, I brainstormed like 300 titles. And then I eventually settled on a set of maybe 10 or so where I was like, it's probably some combination of these. And then there were maybe three or four that kind of bubbled up to the top. And that was one of them. And it was the one of my publisher liked the most. But I wasn't totally sold on it. titles are tough they're they're just as much art as science because you it needs to do multiple

Starting point is 00:05:00 jobs like it sounds obvious but the book needs to tell the title needs to tell you what the book is actually about which you'd be surprised how many books like try to get a little too clever with it and try to game it a little too much and they don't actually set expectations well and the reader doesn't know totally what they're getting so that's like a very straightforward job I think good titles have contrast. So like if you think about a lot of bestsellers, they have some kind of, some element of surprise,

Starting point is 00:05:28 like rich dad, poor dad, or life-changing magic of tidying up. It's like, I thought tidying up was a small thing. You're telling me it's life-changing. Or Susan Kane's book, Quiet.

Starting point is 00:05:40 Quiet doesn't really tell you a whole lot as a title, but the subtitles of that book is so great, which is the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking. It's got this great, contrast. Oh, I thought introverts were meke and mild mannered and you're telling me now they're powerful. And so titles have like multiple jobs to do. And, and it's always hard to know exactly if, you know, what you're picking like is, is checking all those boxes. I picked a random week, but I know this is most weeks, which is just, it's just awesome, but it was February 21st.

Starting point is 00:06:13 You probably remember the three most read books on Amazon, not any title. I'm sorry, not not any category, but just overall three most read books. Number one was promised land by President Barack Obama. Number three was becoming by the first lady Michelle Obama. And number two was Atomic Habits by James Clear. What in the world's going through your mind when you are the sandwich between those two people? Yeah. I don't know, man.

Starting point is 00:06:46 It's crazy. this book has just carried itself to these crazy heights. I mean, I think it's kind of out of my hands at this point in the sense that it's mostly word of mouth and the readers and the audience that's driving it. I did everything that I could to, well, you know, the best marketing strategy you can have is writing an amazing book. And so I, you know, it took me five years to do that. So once the book was written, that was kind of a lot of the potential was already baked in.

Starting point is 00:07:15 but there are a lot of great books that don't blow up. And so then you've got the whole marketing side of it. And, you know, that took me, it was like a year of planning. I think technically it's 15 months. And then I started executing on it about four or five months before the book came out, interviews and prep and bonus material and all this other stuff. And then, you know, over the first six months, the book was out, I did over 200 interviews.

Starting point is 00:07:41 And in addition to all the stuff I was doing with my own audience and platform and everything. So I kind of view the launch as like, it's like launching a space shuttle. You know, like if you can get exit velocity, then it stays in orbit on its own. But if you only give it a little bit of a nudge, then, you know, it falls back down on the landing pad. So I think, you know, I kind of did my part and tried to do the best I could. And now the readers have kind of taken it and run with it. That's awesome. So for today, since we've been on a few times, we've talked a lot about these ideas.

Starting point is 00:08:15 I love for this to be more conversational where I'm going to surface ideas based on excerpts of things you've written, whether it's in a book or in your book, in articles you've written, which, again, prolific you've written for years, hundreds of them, or even tweets, which you've become excellent on that platform. I learn a ton from how concise you're able to pack in a lot. I would it's like anybody try to do that it's really hard to provide an add value which I know is your primary driver what what you're motivated by is to add value in a few number of words so that's what we're trying to do so if you're cool with it I'm going to surface them and then we'll just riff on it is that cool yeah let's sit I think it be fun so okay um I want to talk about fear okay uh I think fear is normal uh I think a lot of us have it um and this is something you've said working on a problem reduces the fear of it. It's hard to fear a problem when you are making progress on it, even if progress is imperfect and slow. Action relieves anxiety. We often avoid taking action

Starting point is 00:09:24 because we think, quote, I need to learn more. But the best way to learn is often taking action. What do you think? Yeah, I kind of bucket that statement like into two, uh, So the first part about feeling anxious or worried or fearful or stressed about, you know, a particular area of your life, I find for myself, I can get locked in that mindset, usually when I'm overthinking about it and underacting on it. So a good example actually is working on a book. So I'm working on my second book right now. I had this period, you know, a couple months ago where I don't know, it's just, it's a huge project. It takes multiple years. You look at the manuscript. It's totally a mess. you know that you have this additional pressure of the publisher expecting something from you.

Starting point is 00:10:13 So anytime I get an email from them or from my agent, I feel like I'm letting them down or, you know, I don't want to open it because I'm worried that they're going to be like, hey, knock knock, like, where's the manuscript at? And, you know, the hilarious thing is they're not like that at all, right? Like, they're very patient and very understanding. But I always have that worry. And what I find is that I feel those feelings much more on weeks when I'm not working on the book than weeks when I am. If I'm in the manuscript and I'm working on it, it's you're making progress.

Starting point is 00:10:42 You're moving forward. And one of the most motivating feelings to the human mind is a feeling of progress. You know, if you're making some progress, even if it's slow, you can feel good about what you did that day. And you also, I think I've done enough big projects now that I've come to realize this, even though it's still hard to do. What I know is that when I'm doing the work, there's an eventuality to it. There's kind of an inevitability to it. You're like, this book, is going to get written. I just need to keep showing up and doing this each day. Same thing kind of happens in the gym. You know, like if you have, I had elbow surgery last year. And so, you know, I had to be out for a couple months, not training, you know, you look at your body in the mirror.

Starting point is 00:11:22 You're like, oh, I'm getting soft. And it's really easy to just judge yourself while you're sitting there. But now I'm back in the gym. And even though I'm not where I want to be, I feel much better about it, because I'm working on it. And I know that there's this inevitability that like, all I got to do is keep putting the reps in and things are going to be going well. So I think that's the first thing is like realizing that a lot of a lot of worries come from underacting. Or I guess I should just say they get magnified. Yeah. I forget who's quoted it is. So, but I'm still going to use it. We learn who we are in practice, not in theory. And I think that's what I think of with with anything recording a podcast, writing a book, leading a team. There's, it's, it's, it's, it's

Starting point is 00:12:06 certainly good to read about it and to try to learn, but you really learn as you do it and usually make mistakes and have to figure some things out, get some feedback from others. That's when we really learn. I think that's, that's, I think, one of the greatest tools, let's say you're afraid to swim. I mean, one of the greatest ways to overcome your fear of swimming is to jump in the water. And I think that's, that goes well with what you're talking about here. Well, that's, and I would say that's kind of the second bucket of thoughts that came up from me when you read that, is this idea that the way to really learn something is to do it. And reading about it or watching a podcast or watching a YouTube clip or listening to a podcast or whatever, like consuming is fine if it is

Starting point is 00:12:50 in service to the thing that you're trying to do, if it is enriching or enhancing the action that you're taking. However, consuming is not that useful and it's kind of just a crutch or a form of procrastination if it's a substitute for acting. And I think a lot of the time planning becomes its own form of procrastination. We start researching and we start digging in and we want to learn more and we think, oh, I don't quite know enough yet. And you just keep spinning your wheels researching and researching. It's not enhancing your actions.

Starting point is 00:13:21 It's substituting for them. And so there's this great article by Scott Young. It's called Do the Real Thing. And he just talks about, he gives a bunch of examples, the one that I remember from the article, was a friend of his wanted to get better at songwriting. And so, you know, they got lunch together and chatting and had all this discussion about, you know, writing songs and whatever. And at one point, Scott was finally like, well, how many songs have you written?

Starting point is 00:13:46 And he was like, two. And he was like, well, just like you write 100 and then let's see where you're at, you know, like you kind of need to do the real thing. And there's also this weird, it's not obvious on the surface. It's obvious once you state it, but we don't usually think about it this way. The person who's doing the thing is. is usually the one who's actually learning, and the people who are receiving the thing

Starting point is 00:14:08 are actually doing something else. So, for example, the person who learns the most in each classroom is the teacher, not the students, because you've got to really know me your material to teach it. The person who, you know, is learning the most at any conference is the speaker, not the attendee. Same story. The speaker is the one who asks to really get their act together.

Starting point is 00:14:31 And so there's, yeah, there's this weird thing. thing where like you think you're learning something different than what you think you are. You know, what you're learning is how to be a good conference attendee or how to receive a lecture in a classroom. You learn the things that you do. And so, yeah, as much as possible, it makes sense to do the real thing. There's all kinds of knowledge you can soak up that way. And I don't know, for some reason we just use it as kind of a crutch where we say, oh, I need to learn more. But actually, if you're serious about that, then it means you need to do it more. James, the avatar I speak to a lot as someone who is, they have a leadership role within a big company.

Starting point is 00:15:10 They're not necessarily the CEO. Some are. And they're not necessarily an individual contributor, but they're somewhere in the middle. And how, for that specific person, how would you take this concept, this idea where they may have some fear? I mean, you could pick any, any example for this person. But in order for them to get better. a leader of taking action within their role to become more effective for the people that they're leading. I mean, the first thing that stuck out to me is writing.

Starting point is 00:15:44 You know, writing skills become increasingly important, the higher you climb. Because the higher you are in the hierarchy, the more people that you disseminate messages to. And so the ability to write one amazing memo or one really great email. and then that ripples down and impacts, you know, dozens or hundreds or even thousands of people becomes increasingly important. And if you're really good at it and if you can layer in like a couple stories and stuff, then sometimes the story or the example can become sticky in the minds of the rest of the team. And it's something they can carry around with them from meeting to meeting and situation to

Starting point is 00:16:26 situation and it becomes a way that they it's like a heuristic they can use to make better decisions. One of the examples I think of is there's a there's a great book, a business book. It's called The Outsiders. It's not the not the one we read in high school. It's a business book. And there's a CEO that's covered in there who took over a small cable company early in his career. It's like I don't know, he's probably early 30s or something when he takes over this little station. I think it was in Buffalo, New York. And, um, when he goes in on his first day, they tell him, hey, we, you know, we're due to paint the building. The paint's chipping away and stuff like we need to kind of refresh that. That's like one thing that we have on our list. And he tells them paint the side that faces the street. Don't paint the other walls. And over the next like 30 years, he ends up climbing through the ranks, becomes, you know, the CEO of this national conglomerate. And the whole way that little story followed him because cost cutting was one of his big initiatives. And, Every time you're sitting in a meeting about budgeting and so on, it's like, how much do we care about cutting costs so much that we'll only paint the side of the building that face of the street.

Starting point is 00:17:34 And so if you can have little sticky stories or almost like myths like that that can spread around the culture, then you really can magnify your impact as a leader. And I think a lot of that comes down to understanding how to write well because you're just kind of sharing that message with the rest of the group. Next one, James. Lack of confidence kills more dreams than lack of ability. Talent matters, especially at elite levels, but people talk themselves out of giving their best effort long before talent becomes the limiting factor. You're capable of more than you know. Don't be your own bottleneck.

Starting point is 00:18:14 The first time I started thinking about this, you know, this statement, it feel, on the surface, it feels very traditional self-healthy. You know, like don't doubt your own greatness. Don't hold yourself back, that kind of thing. But actually, my entry point to this line of thinking was through very scientific discussion about genetics and people talking about like, oh, you know, if it's all about genes, then, you know, isn't it already fixed? Like, why try, basically?

Starting point is 00:18:40 And what I realize is, you know, people get so wrapped up in these discussions of like where their limits are or whether they have limits, you know, like, oh, you'll never be LeBron James. You'll never be, you know, six foot eight like you are the height that you are. You'll never be able to run that fast or whatever. And look, certainly, we all have boundaries to our limits, physically, intellectually, whatever. But people get so caught up in defining what those are or trying to have this discussion about like, is your boundary at the same level of somebody else's, that they never even get close to pushing on what that boundary is for them. You know, I kind of think about, I heard this example somewhere.

Starting point is 00:19:18 I can't remember where sort of like your genes are like the, imagine the boundary of a soccer field or, you know, a basketball court or something. And you can't go out of bounds. So there is some limit. But there's basically an infinite number of paths that you can take on the court. And so it doesn't really say a whole lot about what you're limited and what you're able to do because you have so much flexibility within whatever the boundary is that you have.

Starting point is 00:19:44 And so I feel like almost always people set their own boundaries long before physical or biological needs actually set them. They decide, they cut their dreams down long before the bottleneck becomes, oh, actually, I physically couldn't do it. Or mentally, I just wasn't smart enough to do it. You know, what I found for myself is almost all the excuses I made early on don't have enough time, don't have enough money, don't have the right connections. don't have the right education. Almost all of those were excuses for what the real bottleneck was, which is I just didn't have enough courage. And if I almost always, there was a step I could have taken,

Starting point is 00:20:29 even if it was something small, if I had the guts to take it. And so it's almost never that your physical limits are actually the thing that is holding you back. It's the courage or the willingness to keep trying. What did you not have enough courage to do, for example? Well, I wish I would have started my business two years before I did. So, you know, looking back, I'm glad. I am very glad I did it then, but I could have done it even earlier.

Starting point is 00:20:57 And so why didn't you do it? I kept telling myself all the things that you just said like three or four minutes ago about how I needed to learn more and it wasn't the right time. I literally went and got an MBA because I thought I need to learn more about business instead of just starting my company. And so I spent the next two. years studying it because I thought I needed to learn more. And it's like, well, what did I actually get good at there? I didn't actually get good at the real thing at starting a business. I got good at

Starting point is 00:21:24 being a student and learning how to read textbooks that, you know, like all the things that I was actually practicing. Do you think that helped though? The only thing that it helped me with was not the knowledge part. It helped me with having time to figure out what kind of business I wanted to start. I sort of knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I didn't have anybody in my family who was one or any close friends, really. And so I didn't know really what that meant. And so I needed a little bit of time to kind of figure out what that was going to be and what kind of business I wanted to start.

Starting point is 00:21:57 And I still didn't really know. That's the great irony of it and why I say I kind of would like to have started a couple years earlier. It still took me two years of after graduating, of trying businesses before I figured out I wanted to do what is now, James Clear.com. Like I did a bunch of other stuff beforehand where I was trying to build iPhone apps or start these other websites that, you know, are unrelated to what I do now. And so I kind of needed to stumble around for two years before I found my footing. So that process took four years instead of two.

Starting point is 00:22:25 So the next one I'm going to say, I think flows with this. One of the things that I use you as an example so much when someone reaches out and say they want to start a podcast, or they want to write a book or they want to get a lot of speaking gigs. I use you an example because you're known as someone who shipped twice a week for years, without a doubt. And you can tell that part of the story. But I'll share the short quote. And then you can talk more about your shipping process earlier in your career, which I think is the reason that your book has done what it's done on top of being an excellent book.

Starting point is 00:23:02 So it is what looks like talent is often careful preparation, what looks like skill is often persistent revision. Can you share what that means for you and your career and how that can apply to somebody else too and your dedication to shipping? When I remain shipping, I mean, publishing twice a week for years on James Clear.com. Yeah, so I've published a new article every Monday and Thursday for the first three years.

Starting point is 00:23:29 And I think that right was, yeah, I think I missed once. but the day that I missed I had food poisoning and so I put up on the website the article is coming I just wrote that and then published it and I just felt like I had to press publish to get something out like no readers cared right but I knew that I had the streak

Starting point is 00:23:53 and so I felt like I felt like mentally I just needed to press publish on something just so that you know I was doing that but I think that writing habit yeah I would agree with you like that kind of set the trajectory for my career. And it's sort of like training in the gym, which I think you need like volume before intensity.

Starting point is 00:24:15 And so you have a couple different vectors or areas where you could compensate on your work or where you could compromise. So for example, you could compromise on quality. You could say, I'm always going to get something out, but some will be better than others. You could compromise on quantity. You could say, no, I'm only going to hit this quality bar,

Starting point is 00:24:35 but it's not going to be every Monday and Thursday. It's only going to be when I can publish it a high quality. Or you could do the third one, which is what I did, which is I compromised on scope. And so I said, I always want to publish something high quality. And I know that I need to get my reps in. And so I'm always going to publish on Monday and Thursday. But that might mean that the best I can do is only write like two good paragraphs that week. And so if that's what it is, that's what it is.

Starting point is 00:25:01 But it's going to be high quality and it's going to get out. and so that was kind of my the way that I handled that. I've done something similar with workouts as well, which is saying something along the lines of, okay, I'm going to train four days a week, and I want it to be a good workout each time. But sometimes, you know, time gets away from you or the day is crazy. Like, I don't have time to work out for 45 minutes like I usually do.

Starting point is 00:25:26 It's like, well, that's fine, but you do still have time to do like three good sets of pushups or you have time to do five sprints or whatever. And so it's kind of like removes the excuses and make sure that you keep the streak alive. And I start to feel like looking back now, the bad days are even more important than the good days because they maintain the consistency and the mindset and they maintain the identity that you've built up. And it's this little message to yourself that like, hey, the situation wasn't ideal. And this wasn't perfect, but you still found a way to get it done. And in the long run, I feel like that counts for more because it gets you back in there on the good days.

Starting point is 00:26:07 So, so yes, I think that that part was really crucial. But the quote that you read about, you know, careful preparation and persistent revision, preparation is huge. I have come to think it's even more important than I initially realized. You know, I was just talking to a friend last night and she's a very successful lawyer. and I asked her if she had any tricks like in the courtroom, like any things that she does to, I don't know, try to, when she's examining witnesses or whatever,

Starting point is 00:26:37 like just what strategies do you use? And eventually what came out throughout the conversation was something interesting, which is most of the cases are actually one before they even walk into the courtroom. They're one in how they prepare because really great lawyers will, the selection of witnesses is crucial. And so they don't just pick like whatever witnesses happen to be related to the case. They pre-interview a bunch of people and they say, hey, maybe there's like three people I could be examining for this key point about the case. They'll pre-interview all three and then figure out, okay, this is the one person who's telling the story in the best way that, you know, that I want.

Starting point is 00:27:14 And that's the person they called the witness stand. And then before that happens, they walk through the whole thing and they basically organize their entire argument so that it can be a series of yes, no questions that inevitably walks them what she said was, from A to X. And if I want you to get to X, I ask you A and B and C and D. And all of those are yeses all on the way until we get down to where we're, you know, basically like once we get to R and S and T, it's almost inevitable at that point because you've already given up so much that you have to keep going. And anyway, the point of all this is that that's all preparation. That's not, you know, like none of that is happening. It's not like any magical, some amazing orator in the courtroom. It's not somebody who has like this incredible tactical FBI negotiation skill.

Starting point is 00:28:03 It's just the fact that you cared enough to find the right person and to organize the argument in the right way. And there's so many things in life that are like that, that if you're willing to prepare almost to an unreasonable degree to the point where it's far beyond what the competition or what most people would do, then you realize that the outcomes will be very different. to give another example on this. So I'm trying to think about how much of this I should talk about. So I'll just keep it general.

Starting point is 00:28:35 But the point is a variety of different firms have reached out about making some kind of film or television version of Atomic Habits. And this actually has been happening for a year or two. So, you know, like different people have different levels of interest or whatever. And I'll go into some of these meetings and ask something like, okay, you know, this is the idea that you're exploring or that, we, you know, think could be what this might look like in a film version or in a TV version. What is it that causes similar shows to not succeed? You know, why would a similar show or a person who's in a similar situation or, you know, we have like a similar size audience, what are those common reasons why shows like that fail? And it's amazing how often the response

Starting point is 00:29:16 back will be, oh, that's a good question. I've never been asked that before. Or I'm not sure. I haven't been asked that. I need to think about that more. And, you know, I don't consider this to be a very brilliant question, you know, but I'm, it always surprises me. I'm like, nobody's asked it before. Like, it's kind of wild to me. Like, this is your job, you know, like you're, you're making shows all day long and nobody's asking what causes some of these to succeed and what causes them to fail. And I think also nobody's taking seriously trying to answer that, you know, like really thinking about it for two or three or four days and trying to figure out what is it that, you know, is causing some of these to hit or some of them not to. And,

Starting point is 00:29:54 The only conclusion that I can have about stuff like that is people aren't actually that serious about succeeding. They're not actually that serious about preparing because if you were, you would have a bunch of questions like that that you would carefully prepare answers to and think about. And I think you can apply that line of questioning to basically any area of life. But what you find is most people are not serious about preparing and the results follow suit. Mark Sharon Brock brought this up. when i had a recorder with him james um it's more important to be interested than interesting and

Starting point is 00:30:31 the people that i love spending time with ask the best questions and not even necessarily the best questions they just ask questions yeah um and that's that's you're you're obviously one of those guys and you have been since i met you years ago and i and when i actually analyze the people in my life who i really you know get excited about going to dinner with or having a conversation with that's that's a common theme in every one of them. They have, they're not trying to sound smart with their questions, but they're genuinely curious. Like a question of why didn't this go well? I mean, you're not, you know, that's not rocket scientist level question. That seems like a basic question that someone should have asked and you certainly should have an answer for. Just like,

Starting point is 00:31:17 I think when you have, I asked this of sales leaders all the time, that are senior leaders within a company, why did the year go well? And I think you should have a really good answer for that. If you, if you crushed it for the year, like, I mean specifics, really good examples. And if you don't, I'm concerned. I'm concerned that you can't repeat it. And I think we should know why and we should do the work to know why things have gone well or things haven't. And a lot of it, though, does come down to the act of, it's hard of being prepared, of preparing for the big moments, you know. this, it's not going to be possible to fully predict why things succeed or fail. So you have to understand that too. Like there's no, you know, I ask these questions, but I realize, you know,

Starting point is 00:32:02 like we're never going to fully know. Sometimes it is just luck. Sometimes it's, you know, random or complicated and we don't have a good explanation for it. But it's kind of like, you know, having a plan almost always serves you, even though things almost never go to plan. And this is the same kind of thing where, you know, having a theory on why something succeed and trying to find the patterns between the successful ones and finding the common failures of the things that don't hit serves you even if the reasons are not always perfect. I think about this. So Maggie Rogers, the musician, she had this post she put up on her Instagram that was a list of notes that she had on one of the songs that she was working on. And she posted a clip to a,

Starting point is 00:32:47 of her feedback on, oh, I think this symbol should come in a second earlier attack, sent that note. And like, it was just kind of her, it was all the feedback that she and her producer had as they were going through stuff in the studio. And I thought it was just fascinating to look through the notes and to hear that conversation. Because what came out of it, you know, it's only a minute or too long, but you realize she has to get it right. Like it would bother her if it wasn't right. And I think that curiosity, what you just mentioned, that's one big driver, of asking questions and a genuine desire to get it right to master your craft or to just do it in the right way, that's another key driver of asking these questions. People who actually care about

Starting point is 00:33:30 doing it well, they have a bunch of questions about how to do that and why it might happen or why it might not. And people who are just kind of half in, you know, doing things halfway in that sense is actually quite risky because going halfway, you actually don't even learn anything. about the attempt because you need to give like a genuine full effort and then possibly still fail. But if you gave your best effort, you can actually infer a lot from that. If you only give a half-assed effort, then you don't really, you can't really learn a whole lot about it. That makes me think, I'm going off script for a second, that makes me think that Maggie Rogers cares about A plus work. You've talked a lot about A plus work. What can you define what A plus work is

Starting point is 00:34:15 and why it's a worthy endeavor, not only for you, but for others to think about this. So I don't think you always need to do A plus work. I think in many areas of life and probably, you know, for any individual, I think most stuff doing it at a B level or whatever you consider to be good enough is probably fine. You know, very few things really matter. And so, you know, I don't think you need that level in most stuff. And then also, you know, in other, in certain industries or some areas, good enough is probably fine. But specifically for creators, like myself, or like you said, Maggie Rogers or something like that, so writers, musicians, you know, anybody making YouTube videos or podcasts, whatever, somebody who's creating something, digital creators, putting the

Starting point is 00:35:00 work out online, doing A plus work is really crucial because the difference between A minus work and A plus work is not like a little bit. It's the difference of being at the 90th percentile. versus being at the 99th percentile of, say, being an author, is not 9% more book sales. It's probably not even 9x more book sales. It might be like 100x or 1,000x. These are very exponential curves that these industries operate on. And so whenever you're dealing with some kind of power law, the majority of the outcomes accrue to the top 1%, and then even within that sliver at the top 1% of the 1%.

Starting point is 00:35:42 And so the difference is enormous if you're willing to take the time to really do it right. And I think if you're dealing with a situation like that where you see that kind of pattern emerge, then yeah, you should probably take the time to do the A plus work. The other time that maybe you want to do it even if it's just a normal distribution, if it's not this kind of exponential outcome, is just if that particular area is so meaningful to you. So marriage maybe is a good example. Like, yeah, probably worth it to put in the effort to be an A plus spouse just because that's the person you're going to spend the bulk of your time with.

Starting point is 00:36:18 And, you know, I guess we could probably make an argument that love could be exponential in that sense. So maybe, you know, maybe it does operate on some kind of curve like that. But you can see how meaningful that's going to be to your life. So whether we can measure the outcomes or not, it doesn't really matter there. It's probably worth it to do the work at that level. Do you think so? Most areas of life probably don't require that. But the few that do, it's worth taking the time.

Starting point is 00:36:40 Could this be limiting for people, though? Because for example, they read Atomic Habits or any of your articles and they say, that's A plus work and I can't do it. I can't perform at that level. Writers, MVE, podcast, whatever. That is beyond the scope of not only what I'm currently capable of, but I just don't see it. I mean, I read stuff and think this sometimes. And I'm sure you have before, even though now you've produced A plus.

Starting point is 00:37:10 work and proven. But could this be limiting? Because at the beginning, we're talking about, hey, you got to get repetitions. You got to do it. You learn through actually doing it. But at the same time, you're like, yeah, but it's got to be a plus. It's got to be a plus work. Well, you know, so what do you think about that juxtaposition between those two? No, it's a great tension to, because I think we all, you know, anybody who creates something deals with that. So first, it comes back to what we were just talking about, like five or 10 minutes ago, being your own bottleneck. So anytime that voice comes up in your own head, you know, the truth is, we don't actually know what the answer is on whether you can produce A plus work or not. Maybe you can. Maybe you

Starting point is 00:37:48 can't. You might be right. But all we can say for certain is that you will definitely be right if you never attempted. So once again, people are off in their own bottleneck without realizing it. The second thing, though, is I, so I came across this idea. I think it's called experience sampling, but I sort of think about it like a recipe. So, for example, I really love Indian food. Now, let's say that you want to make like teak masala or something, or you want to try this Indian dish. Well, you can walk into the kitchen and take a spoonful of the dish.

Starting point is 00:38:26 You don't have to eat the whole thing. You don't have to serve yourself an entire plate. But you can take a spoonful and you can know whether or not, you know, it's good or not, even though it's just a small sample. But if you only eat, like, say, a single grain, of rice, then that's too small. You lose the overall fidelity of the dish. You don't, you're not including the other ingredients. So it's too tiny now. It doesn't actually tell you anything. And I think that when it comes to trying out ideas or, you know, you read some book, you think this is A plus work.

Starting point is 00:38:54 I'd love to produce something like this, but I don't think I'm capable of it. What my encouragement would be is scale it down to the smallest size so that you're still sampling something meaningful. You know, it can't be so small. It can't just be a grain of rice. But what's a spoonful of that experience. And so I would say in the case of writing, you know, you don't need to start by writing an A plus book. Can you write an A plus tweet? Because that's like, that's pretty small, actually. Like that, all we're saying there is like, can you write two or three really good sentences? Something really compelling. And if you can do that and show up and just like for me, usually what I try, I don't, I don't always do it, but what I generally keep in mind is like,

Starting point is 00:39:31 can I write one tweet a day? Because what ends up happening there is if you can write two or three good sentences a day. You turn around at the end of the year and you're like, okay, you know, maybe I did that 300 times. I got three sentences per. Now I got 900 sentences. And that's actually, actually it's like starts to be like sort of a meaningfully sized thing. And you can see how all you need to do is just write a few good sentences each day. And eventually you will have an A plus book if it's made up of these A plus parts. And so you need to be able to scale it down to a size that you can do it a you can make a small bet but you can do it at a high quality bar and i think that's kind of the first thing is can i just do the small version of this really

Starting point is 00:40:10 really well and then you can start to layer them together and you know let's see what it becomes the other thing that you need is just incredible patience there because it when you make it small like that it might take you five years that's what it took me to write the book and most people just aren't patient enough for that that really underrated quality uh as long as you're willing to continue to do the work I remember you mentioned in our previous time we talked. The friction is lacing up the shoes. Once you began running, you're already running.

Starting point is 00:40:39 And then you just keep running. And I think that's the same whether it's with any amount of work, usually the friction is getting started and getting past this self-limiting beliefs. Another one here, I want to go. A Chilean saying, criticizing a musician is easy, but it's more difficult when you have a guitar in your hand. Another one that I'll add on that I think is very similar is he who jumps into the void, there's no explanation to those who stand and watch, which is from a French Swiss

Starting point is 00:41:06 filmmaker named Jean-Luc Goddard. Can you share more about amount, I guess, you know, when you have a book that's a prominence, although it gets rave reviews, I'm sure you have haters now that you're more well-known and more famous, especially people who haven't done it. But I think this is a good for people just to think about in their own lives, because it's so easy now to hate on others or to criticize people yet you haven't even done it or you don't even know what they're doing. So what do you think about this Chilean saying and what does it mean to you? I feel like this problem has gotten worse recently. I don't even just mean for me personally. I'm very well, first of all, I don't know very much about most things. So whenever I get feedback,

Starting point is 00:41:53 I'm like, yeah, it's probably right. Like I probably got a lot of things wrong. So I'm very open to the criticism and the feedback because I think there are probably a lot of things that be improved. But I also don't really write about those volatile of topics. You know, like I don't write about politics or religion or I don't know, a bunch of stuff that like I'm sure people who write about that get way more, you know, hate and criticism. So, but I do generally feel like I just, I don't know, I guess it's just a proliferation of social media, proliferation of individual platforms. Like it feels like everybody comments on everything now. And, um, and, um, I don't know, I guess it's just a proliferation of social media, thing now, or that you're almost expected to have an opinion on everything now, which,

Starting point is 00:42:33 you know, that's a whole separate thing. I don't know that that's healthy. But as a result, you just get a lot of feedback if you're, you know, going to be out there and publishing stuff online. And so you kind of have to choose, you know, like you can either leave your greatness inside of you and be ignored or you can publish something and be criticized. And, you know, it's up to you. Do you want to be ignored or do you want to be criticized? But you sort of have to know that that's part of the game if you're going to be out there and sharing your work. I generally, though, find that it's fairly easy to weed out, like, say, the bottom 20% of criticism, because you can tell pretty quickly if people are just, I don't know, being a troll

Starting point is 00:43:13 or if they're not really, they just don't have any intention of, they're not actually trying to make your work better. They're just having a bad day or whatever. And for whatever reason, I'm, like, kind of able to shuffle that to the side and not worry about it too much. The ones that really get me are the thoughtful critiques. And I'm like, I just, I hate getting it wrong. And that's a really good point. And when I feel like that, I realize that my initial reaction is what I usually want to do. If I just had no limiter, I would just immediately reply on Twitter and try to defend what idea that I had stated.

Starting point is 00:43:47 But thankfully, I usually can pause enough to realize, like, actually, there's some truth in that statement. And so typically what I should do is not respond and then take that and run with that thread, run with the seed that they just planted and try to figure out if I can strengthen the argument for the next time around. And so then I can go update the article or maybe, you know, if we do a second edition of the book or whatever. And so I think the best way to utilize that is channel it into making the work better rather than letting it devolve into some kind of like, you know, ongoing Twitter battle or whatever. Yeah. And I know, I just think for people in general, too. It's a, it's a, just a good reminder. I just don't see much use in like criticizing people. And I have

Starting point is 00:44:31 absolutely no idea what they're going through, what they're doing. I've never done it. You know, I don't know. I think that part of it, we all probably better off if we like, I don't know. That's not something we did. I generally think it's better to champion what you consider to be good ideas than to criticize what you think are bad ideas. Right. Because the sometimes, there's a certain set of people who really resist that. They're like, oh, you mean this person's wrong and I'm just supposed to let it go? And I'm basically like, yes.

Starting point is 00:44:59 But the thing is, the best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it gets forgotten. Right. And so you essentially, you feed the good ideas, energy and input and distribute them and spread them. And you starve the bad ideas and gradually let them kind of, you know, suffocating. and die. And I don't know that, you know, people don't realize that when they're in the heat of the

Starting point is 00:45:25 moment. Anytime you respond to an idea that you hate on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or wherever, you're just adding fuel to the fire. You're continuing to spread it in the algorithm because another person commented, another person gave feedback. And it just keeps it surfaced, whereas it's the tweets that nobody responds to that just die real quick and, you know, don't get red. And so you really want to be responding to the stuff that you believe in and ignoring the stuff that you don't. And wouldn't you rather be known as someone who be known for what you love versus what you hate or what you dislike? Maybe that sounds woo, but I seriously, I really believe that. And that's why as a parent, like, I think about that a lot. Like, let's be known for talking positively

Starting point is 00:46:08 behind the backs of other people, not gossiping negatively. Let's be known for sharing articles, books, podcast, cool things. This is like what your 3-2-1 is all about, right? Your email newsletter, which I know millions of people read. I'm one of them. But that's what that stuff's all about. It's championing good ideas, great people, things that they've done. And the stuff you disagree with or bad, just let it go. Just let it go. I feel like it's a much better way to approach just life in general. Well, and usually, if we're talking about in the business context, people generally win because they bet on something, not against something. Yes.

Starting point is 00:46:47 Especially in the long run. You win because you bet on an idea. You decide to start a company about it or write a book about it or do a project related to it. If you're just sitting around criticizing or finding reasons that things won't work, then it's very rare that you end up winning because of that. Usually what happens is you just spend a lot of time complaining. There's this set of people. This is kind of like a pet peeve of mine.

Starting point is 00:47:10 It's like an idea is. thrown out, let's just say it's a startup idea or way. It doesn't really matter what category. But there's a group of people who kind of try to find the awesome thing about that idea. And then they deal with reality along the way. They know they're going to be a bunch of problems, but they solve them as they arise. And so these people are like, I've heard them phrase, I saw somebody on Twitter, put it as problem solvers versus problem adders. So problem adders are the second group of people and whenever an idea is thrown out, they immediately find all the reasons why it wouldn't work. And again, this is another version of being your own bottleneck.

Starting point is 00:47:49 If the first thing that you do whenever a new idea is voice, just find all the stuff that's wrong with it, then you never end up taking action on it because all you see are a bunch of barriers. But the person who sees the awesome parts of it, they have something to believe in, something to bet on. And so then they solve the problems as reality surfaces them, rather than inventing their own reasons in their head why this would never work and they don't attempt stuff. So I actually think that tendency to criticize first, it ends up hurting you personally separate from whether you think some other person is wrong or not. If you let that permeate your mindset, it ends up preventing you from trying stuff as you go through life. And eventually that

Starting point is 00:48:27 ends, you know, it doesn't lead to a good place because you rarely take action on stuff. And from a leadership perspective, who would you rather follow? right who would you rather follow obviously you're following the one who is a problem solver who's going to take action not the one who's just going to complain all the time i that there's no i have no desire i know i'm picturing people like that i'm picturing people in both of those camps right now and i know which ones i've chosen to commit to to follow right that's a good reflective question to ask yourself of what i always like to say like how what is the perception of me what does it feel like to be led by me. What's it like to be in their shoes? And is it positive? Is it good?

Starting point is 00:49:11 You know, obviously you seek feedback to get that. But that's a really good question to ask yourself, am I a problem solver? Am I a problem matter on a regular basis? Because maybe you're doing it and you don't even realize it. And that's a problem. So that's a whole self-awareness thing. Okay, let me get to one or two more. The more, I think this is in line with this, James, because it really spoke to me because I feel like when I'm in like a really good place, this is, this one applies. The more comfortable I am with myself, the less I feel a need to win arguments with other people. You're right. It does connect to that because it's the kind of thing I've realized like gradually what, you know, when I send out my email, a newsletter now, I send it out each week goes out to like, you know, 1.2 million people or something. It's not possible to send an email to that many people and have everybody be happy about it.

Starting point is 00:50:05 Some people just regardless of, I mean, I just can't, it's not possible for any single writer, in this case, me, to, you know, imagine all the different lines of attack for a certain idea or, you know, the experiences everybody has had or, you know, whatever. Sometimes we'll just have bad days. So you're going to get criticism. And, you know, for a long time, I felt like I really have to justify my stance on each of those. Like I, you know, for many years, I responded to every email that I got. And now I don't worry about it as much because, I don't know, I'm just, I'm more at peace or confident in the ideas that I'm sharing. And the more comfortable I am with myself and the ideas that I'm putting out there, the less I feel the need to have to justify that or win an argument with somebody else. And, you know, of course, that general idea, general comfort level with who you are ripples into many other choices and decisions and stuff in life. I mean, this is the whole kind of thing. You know, I think. I think early on you go through like teenager or college years, whatever, peer pressure is kind of a bigger thing, partially because people don't know who they are as much.

Starting point is 00:51:07 And so you're, you know, as you get it later into your 20s and into your 30s and so on, I don't know. You just kind of know who you are. You're more confident in a peace with yourself and what you want. And so it's a lot easier to turn down a drink or be like, I'm not going to go to the party tonight or whatever. And you don't feel like you need to justify it somehow. It's just like, I know who I am and I know what I want to do. and that quality can come through in writing and sharing ideas. I don't know if that only if that's just an age thing, though, James.

Starting point is 00:51:34 I think it's definitely true earlier in your life, but I don't know if people in the age range, as you mentioned, have outgrown that just based on their experiences because you see some of the, I don't know, the status desiring types. And I immediately think, I'm trying to be judgmental, but I'm thinking they're probably not fully comfortable yet. And you're one of those guys who is, I've sensed as complete comfort in who you are, you know yourself well, because you've done so much reflective work of getting your ideas down on the page and then you've published it and had the guts to share publicly.

Starting point is 00:52:10 And then support and talk about those ideas with people. I think that helps you probably build up a high level of awareness of self and of those around you. And that could, that could bring some comfort. I sense that. and high level leaders. I sense that in people that I've had on the show because it just takes a lot of work to not worry so much about, like, status.

Starting point is 00:52:34 And that's something I feel like you've really figured out. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that I figured it out. I think it's something status is a very... Can I interject real quick? Sure. So, like, for example, on social media, like I'm getting...

Starting point is 00:52:49 This is a hypothesis. I think you purposely are trying not to be famous. The pictures you use on your profile, you can't even see your face. You never post pictures of, you post pictures of your ideas on Instagram, for example, but I don't know if you've ever posted a personal picture to my knowledge, and I've followed you for a while. Only of the ideas, nothing when it's your wife Christy's birthday or you're celebrating anniversary. Like none of that exists on there. It's all about the work and the ideas.

Starting point is 00:53:22 And to me, I feel like you could be much more famous if you did do those other things. And yet you choose not to. And I sense that comes from some comfort and not only comfort, but like knowing yourself and knowing your value, not needing that. Because I'm not going to lie. Like sometimes I like that feeling. Sure. People like, oh, look at your family. Oh, look at you.

Starting point is 00:53:42 Like I kind of like, you know what I mean? So I'm curious about your mindset in that regard. Yeah. I mean, you know, I like being praised too. I mean, everybody like. receiving some sort of positive feedback like that. I mean, I think it's just part of being human. But you're right.

Starting point is 00:53:56 I have zero interest in being famous. I don't want to. But you actually, I think a lot of people say that, you actually, I sense, do not. Like you really do not want that. I think for a lot of things, there, well, okay, so again, let's go to the gym as an example. If you just make the motion of a squat with no weight on your back, you just do like an air squat, that's fine.

Starting point is 00:54:24 You know, it's good to like for mobility, but you're not going to build huge legs that way. But once you start to put a bar in your back and add some weight to the bar, yeah, actually, you can get quite strong and build, you know, solid muscles that way. However, if you put 10,000 pounds in the bar and step underneath it, it will kill you, right? Like, it will crush you at that level. And so there's this sweet spot in the curve that some of it stimulates growth and is really positive, but too little doesn't really do much and doesn't help you. And too much actually can hurt you. And I think that fame and money are both like that. A little bit of notoriety being known in your field, being known for producing great work. What I consider to be my kind of objective at this point is I want to be known by name, not by face. So think about brands like Cal, Cal, Cal, Calvin Klein or Kate Spade or something like that. You know, certainly there might be some people who are really into fashion or whatever that they would be able to spot Calvin Klein or know what, you know, that person looks like.

Starting point is 00:55:23 But for the average person, it's just a brand. They don't, they can't put a face to the name. And I think James Clearer can be like that too. You know, like I think it can be a brand that stands for high quality and well thought out ideas and being practical and useful and, you know, trying to set the standard for whatever the topic is that I'm writing about. And that's what the brand can mean. But me, James, as a person,

Starting point is 00:55:48 can be his own person and just live a normal life and walk around the neighborhood and go to restaurants and whatever and not have it be a big deal. And that's like the lifestyle that I'm more interested in living. And so I try to take actions that I feel like are aligned with that lifestyle.

Starting point is 00:56:04 I think about this story. So I love to travel. And obviously last year it's been very weird for that and haven't really gone anywhere. But a couple years ago, I went to Singapore, and I landed and got in the, I was with a buddy of mine, and we got in this cab, and we asked the driver to take us to some of the hawker stalls, which are like the food stalls that are kind of well known around the city. And he drove us to this one that was great and had a bunch of great food, and he got out, and he was a very nice guy. He took us around and showed us to stay under order from and stuff. And when he took us there, I said, oh, along the way, he had told us this story.

Starting point is 00:56:37 He said, the most famous person he's ever driven in this cab is Elton John. And I was like, oh, that's, you know, that's pretty awesome. And I asked him, I was joking. I was like, do you take Elton John to this food stall? And he just laughed and he was like, ha, ha, no, no. He has the name, but not the life. We have the life, but not the name. And I was like, oh, God, I just loved that because there's so much truth to it.

Starting point is 00:57:00 You know, like there's just a certain set of things that Elton John or Taylor Swift or Beyonce, they can't really do, you know, like Taylor Swift can't really go to that food stall. without a security brigade and it being a huge thing, you know? And I would hate that. I would hate to lose that stuff. And, you know, just to be clear here, I don't want to act like I'm over hyping myself. I don't think I'm in any threat of having that level of fame. But if you don't want that outcome, then also don't take choices that move you in that

Starting point is 00:57:30 direction. And that's kind of, you know, that's sort of my line of thinking with it. And I think wealth is the same way, you know, like not having any money or having very little money. Yeah, that's a terrible thing. And it's going to make your life much harder. Starting to get a decent amount of money. Yeah, that's, you know, that's great. And having maybe a couple million dollars or life changing, you know, but there's some amount of money and we could debate where it is where actually, I think it's, it causes more problems than it helps. You know, like, would you really want to be a billionaire? I mean, if people ask you that right away, you're like, yeah, that'd be great. I'd love to have

Starting point is 00:58:07 money and not have to worry about it at all. But if you really think about it, I'm like, actually, I would much rather have, you know, a significantly less amount of money, but still millions of dollars. Because once you become a billionaire, like, you have a target on your back. People judge you for no reason at all, really, just the fact that you're rich. Some people hate you for it. You start to get all kinds of weird requests. Your lifestyle probably has not changed in any meaningful way from when you had, say, I don't know, $100 million, certainly, probably more like $20 million or something, there's not really a whole lot more you can do. You don't need more money. And just getting more actually makes your life worse. And so I think getting a lot more money,

Starting point is 00:58:45 getting a lot more fame, they have very severe diminishing returns. And yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't know. I could be wrong. Maybe some people are listening this like, no, you're an idiot. You should get as much money as possible. But that's kind of where I, how I think about it. One of the things that's changed since last time we talked, man, you've become a dad. And I know you're private about this. But I'm if I'll cut this. by the way, if you need me to. But I am curious how it's change your life. I love being a dad. I don't know. I mean, it changes my life like time-wise. I think one thing I knew was that I would have less time, but what I didn't realize is that is the way in which I would have less time. Like

Starting point is 00:59:28 every task is very choppy. It's very hard to find large blocks of time. And so, you know, it just feels like I do a lot of things that get interrupted now, which is far. fine. It was just part of, you know, it's part of the tradeoff. But, uh, you just have to work in a different way because of that you need to attack projects in a different way. I mean, when I was writing atomic habits, like I'll probably, I'll probably never write a book the way I wrote the first one because with that one, I didn't have kids. And I would, like, I would just work on it for like 12 hours a day. Uh, and it was just all I did. And, you know, I was basically, even eating, you know, while I was eating meals, I was working on it. And I did that for like a, there was like a six

Starting point is 01:00:05 month, I guess we'd call it like the dark period where I was just like I was living and breathing the book basically and that was how I got it finished. And so I probably will never have a period like that again when working on future books. So you just need to change your, you know, your strategy and approach. So I guess that was a change. But on a more personal level, I don't know, I love it. She's a delight. And I am very grateful to my previous self that I was able to design a lifestyle that lets me be home and work from a home office and have the flexibility to take her on walks in the afternoon or to wake up early and take her when my wife needs to sleep in or I don't know just you know all the little things that happen there like all these

Starting point is 01:00:49 little moments and I'm glad that I get to be here and experience those because the you know lifestyle and the job that I've been able to design love it man one more um there's there's somebody who uh you know there's a lot of James clear fans there's somebody who just graduated college and they don't know what they want to do, but they do want to leave a dent, right? They want to, they want to impact people in a positive way and help others. They want to, they want to have, they want to feel fulfilled. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to that person? I think, I think questions are better than advice, because advice is actually very brittle in the sense that it applies to a narrow situation.

Starting point is 01:01:41 Usually advice is just people talking you through their past experiences and hoping that it'll apply to you to. But questions are really flexible because you can carry a good question around with you and it will adjust to the situation. Naturally, different answers will come up based on what you're facing. So one of the questions that I like is, what am I optimizing for? And that's a question that I think you need to carry with you your whole life because you'll optimize for different things at different times. You know, when I was in my 20s, I was optimizing for freedom and for trying to get the business established. And so I wanted to travel and I wanted to have my own business. And, you know, like that's what I was trying to make a bunch of decisions around.

Starting point is 01:02:22 Then, you know, like now, of course, I have a family. And so you're optimizing for different stuff, you know, lifestyle stuff with that. And I'm sure it'll change in another 10 years. And so that question I think is really important. and you can ask it on big and on small levels. You know, you can ask it on the real big level, like, what do I want my life to be? But you can also ask it, like, for this individual project, like for my next book, what am I optimizing for in trying to figure out, you know, what the answers to that?

Starting point is 01:02:45 So that's one, I think, really good question. I would encourage someone young to carry around. The second question that I really like is, can my current habits carry me to my desired future? Because a lot of the time, people think they know what they're optimizing for. They think they know what goal they have or what outcome they want, but they don't realize that they're not on a path that can lead to that outcome. You know, like you need to be, some results are inaccessible from certain trajectories. And so if your trajectory is not going to carry you to that desired outcome, then something needs to change.

Starting point is 01:03:23 Your choices need to change. Your habits need to change. Something needs a shift. So can my current habits carry me to my desired future? I feel like it's another one that I like a lot. It's kind of in a similar vein to those two. A question that I'll occasionally come back to or ask myself is like, what am I really trying to achieve here?

Starting point is 01:03:43 And I did a version of that for a couple weeks where I would open up my notebook each day. And at the top of the page, I would just write, what do I really want? And it's funny how useful it is to ask yourself that question repeatedly. you know, like you would think that you just answered one or two times and then you have the answer. But what I found was that over the course of a few weeks, my answer changed quite a bit, actually, because the first stuff that you write down is just, it's just top of mind. It's just like your first thought. And then as you start to dig a little bit deeper, you realize, actually, that's not the thing I want.

Starting point is 01:04:21 That's like an intermediate step. And I could just skip it entirely and go to the thing I actually want. or, you know, actually I say that I want that, but I think I'm just kind of imitating what I've seen other people do. It's falling into this like status trap that you were mentioning earlier. And I don't know that that's actually me, that that's actually what I really want. So I like questions like that that kind of force you to become a little more self-aware

Starting point is 01:04:45 to unearth your true preferences. And to be honest, sometimes ruthlessly so, about whether the life you're living actually is going to take you to the destination that you say that you want. Now you've got to be clear about what you want, but you also have to be honest about what you're actually doing, whether you're moving that direction or not. So I would say that's like the classic questions I would encourage people to have in mind. And then probably the one additional thing that I would layer on to that is just like the general idea of go fast.

Starting point is 01:05:18 You know, the phrase that I like to keep in mind because I don't think you should rush, but it's basically don't rush, but don't wait. You know, so often people wait to do stuff. And it's like if you can develop this bias for action, you're not rushing. You're not doing it thoughtlessly. You're thinking carefully about what the next step is. And you're trying to do each step to the best your ability. But go fast.

Starting point is 01:05:39 You know, assuming you can maintain that quality bar, it's almost always better. Like life is short. You know, it's better to do it today than tomorrow. It's better to do it this year than next year. And when I was talking about that period I had where I was, writing atomic habits for, you know, 12 hours a day for six months straight, basically. You know, that was a really hard period for me, but I was trying to go fast. And man, I think it was a lot better that the book got out in 2018 than say 2020 because I took my time and, you know,

Starting point is 01:06:06 needed an extra two years. Like, I'm glad that I went fast. I got two years of my life back that I could spend on other stuff. And so, um, I generally think having a bias towards action will serve you really well in life. I've found James of 400 plus of these. two of the things that seem to come up with people who are sustaining excellence over an extended period of time. They're thoughtful and intentional. And so they are reflective. They think of three, right. You talk about the questions you pose, the journal questions, to actually spend time and thought.

Starting point is 01:06:38 But then once it's time to go, they act with intention. They get after it. There's a purpose behind it, and they go. That bias for action is a big part of it. Hey, man, this is awesome. Thank you so much. I went over a little bit. I really appreciate.

Starting point is 01:06:50 you doing this. And now that some things have cleared off, we're another step closer, hopefully another cool dinner together in Columbus. So thanks so much for being here, man. Can you talk a little bit more about the three, two, one? Because that's a big thing for me that I read every week. It's the best newsletter I read every week. I know a lot of people tell you that. It's just because it's true. So maybe you can share what that's all about and why people should read it. Yeah, thanks, man. Appreciate the opportunity. Great to talk to you. If you do want more or enjoy the conversation. 321 is probably the best place to start. It's a simple idea. I send one newsletter every Thursday, and it has three ideas from me, two quotes from other people, and one

Starting point is 01:07:30 question to think about and ponder on for the week. And so I call it 321. Over a million people get it every week. And yeah, I genuinely think you'll find it useful and find it valuable if you subscribe. So you can just go to jamesclear.com and click on newsletter and sign up there. All right, ma'am. I highly recommend you do it. It's quick and absolutely useful and you'll be able to take some action from it. So thanks again, as always, for doing this. And we'll certainly be continuing our dialogue as we both progress in. Awesome.

Starting point is 01:08:00 Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, dude. Spending an hour plus with James Clear is a real treat. Absolutely loved it. And, you know, I love it when great things happen to great people and talking to James through the process of writing atomic habits and knowing his schedule of shipping work every Monday and Thursday for years and how much care he puts into it. I just absolutely love to see that the book blew up and still is out there like crazy living on bestseller list

Starting point is 01:08:37 years after it's been published. It's just awesome to see. A few takeaways from my notes. Working on a problem reduces the fear of it. It's hard to fear a problem when you are making progress on it and progress is the big word. Even if progress is imperfect and slow, action relieves anxiety. I'm a big believer in this. We have to take action. We are who we are in practice, not in theory. In order to feel just a bit better for me, progress is everything. And then when we talked about lacking confidence and how that can kill more dreams than lack of ability, talent matters, it does, but people talk themselves out of giving their best effort long before talent becomes a limiting factor. Don't be your own bottleneck. This is the case for a lot of us, whether it's

Starting point is 01:09:28 imposter syndrome or you think you don't know enough or you think you need to spend more time reading, lacking confidence can kill more dreams than lack of ability. Have the belief that it's possible what you want to accomplish. And then think of the part when James said, the person who learns the most is the teacher. The person who learns the most is the one speaking on stage. Putting yourself in the position to be a teacher is when so much learning can happen. So try to orchestrate your work and life in a way to put yourself in the position of being a teacher. And that is when a lot of learning can happen. I want to say, once again, thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two,

Starting point is 01:10:14 hey, you should listen to the Learning Leader Show. This episode with James Clear will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to spread the word and continue to write reviews and rate the show, hopefully five stars, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk to the soon. Can't wait.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 428: James Clear - Asking Better Questions, Taking Action, & Doing A+ Work

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