The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 529: James Clear - Becoming an Optimist, Building Better Habits, Creating Your System, & Setting Up Your Future Self (Atomic Habits)

Episode Date: June 4, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12   https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com James Clear is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, Atomic Habits, which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. His newsletter, 3-2-1 is shipped to more than 2 million people every Thursday. Notes: "The key, if you want to build habits that last, is to join a group where the desired behavior is the normal behavior." We should champion good ideas. You need to bet on something. Bet on a business. Bet on a relationship. Bet on something. You may have less risk being a pessimist or not going all in on something, but you also limit your upside. It's worth being a champion of good ideas. A Chilean saying: "Criticizing a musician is easy, but it is more difficult when you have a guitar in your hand." -- Don't criticize someone else unless you're willing to do the work. Quantity and Quality – The parable of the pottery class – The University of Florida film photography professor, Jerry Uelsmann, divided his class into two groups. What happened with that experiment? We have to get going to get good. Quantity leads to quality. Be consistent. Show up, and do the work. Priorities – We all should ask ourselves this question: If someone could only see my actions and not hear my words, what would they say my priorities are? Steven Pressfield says the difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. 3 things that help luck: Deconstructing your craft, so you know what good opportunities look like. Remaining vigilant, so you notice when lucky breaks come your way. Acting quickly, so you are more likely to seize luck when it arrives. "You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems." "Habits are like the atoms of our lives, each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement." "Outcomes are about what you get. Processes are about what you do. Identity is about what you believe." "The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader." "Your identity emerges out of your habits." Why We Should Write – "Many people assume they are bad at writing because it is hard. This is like assuming you are bad at weightlifting because the weight is heavy." Writing is useful because it is hard. It's the effort that goes into writing a clear sentence that leads to better thinking. Get Going to Get Good – Many situations in life are similar to going on a hike: the view changes once you start walking. You don't need all the answers right now. New paths will reveal themselves if you have the courage to get started. "The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do."  "Building habits in the present allows you to do more of what you want in the future."

Hey, this is Ryan. Quick note, this is a special episode as it was recorded live in front of my friends at my 2023 Learning Leader Growth Summit. We hosted 43 members of my Learning Leader Circles in Columbus, Ohio for the fourth annual Growth Summit. It's one of my favorite weeks of the year. The keynote speaker lineup was absolutely loaded. We had Sherry Cole, Ted Rath, Brooke Cups, Garron Stokes, amazingly inspiring speakers who, forced us to think, got us vulnerable, and created a lot of conversation in the room. And while the speakers crushed it and were awesome, what was maybe even more impressive was the dynamic in the room. We try very hard to stack the room with amazing people and we're very deliberate about who we invite. And I think we got it really right this year. People traveled from all over the world like Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, California,

New York, Florida, Arkansas, Georgia, Utah, and many more. showed up with the intention to add value and go full out. I am so grateful and really set three goals for the event this year. One was to build deep connections with just a few people. I want those in the room to become lifelong friends with a few people in the space. And I wanted to engage in transformational learning that the definition of that is the future intrinsic use of the content. I want people to put what they learn into play.

And then three, I want people to have fun. I want each attendee to smile so much that. their face hurts. And I think we hit our goals. And Sherry, the Hall of Famer, told me afterwards when I asked her what she thought, she said, Ryan, it really is true that the highest achievers remain the hungriest to learn. There is just a generosity of spirit that accompanies that. I left feeling like I'd received a B-12 shot. Good people give juice. The room you assembled was overflowing with it. I'm so grateful for members of my learning leader circles. It's one of my favorite weeks of the year and it was so cool to record this conversation with James Clear as a

surprise live podcast to close the event. All right, here we go. So please welcome James Clear. So I was thinking about where to start. Okay, we'll use these mics. I was thinking about where to start. Okay. And if you remember, we met up at North Star Cafe here in Columbus. Yeah. Seven years ago, I think six or seven years ago. I think six or seven years ago. and you said, hey, man, I got the title for my book. I think I'm ready for it. And I said, oh, what is it, dude? What is it?

And you said, Atomic Habits. And I remember thinking, that's bad. Yeah. I don't think, I don't know if that's a good title. And I didn't say it because I was like, oh, okay, okay, okay. And it's crazy what's happened. So I wanted to start with two things that have changed since that first meeting at North Star Cafe. And I think the first one's actually more important.

Your mind. No. you've become a dad twice since that first meeting. You weren't a parent then. You are now. You had a daughter and you have a son. How has becoming a dad changed your life? I don't really work anymore. I mean, it changes. It changes everything, obviously. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I can say all this cliche things that parents always say, you know, it's been great. I feel like there's a whole new dimension of meaning in my life that I didn't have before, which is kind of strange because like I would have, if you had come up to me, me before that, I never would have said like, oh, my life feels like it's missing something. I felt like I had a really full life and was, you know, really engaged and excited about a lot of things. But it just opens up a new avenue that you didn't know was there. So that's been great. It's been a fantastic period for me. Personally, the business has been going really well. The book has done well. It's been a really difficult period creatively. A lot of the time when I do

creative work, I need big chunks of time. So two hours or four hours. And like, you don't, you don't really get two or four hours uninterrupted. You know, you get a lot. You know, you get like 20 minutes. That's been interesting. I need like a whole different style of work now. I have chosen to design my business so that I spend a lot of time with my kids. I see them all throughout the day. I have a home office rather than like leaving for five hours. So that's been interesting. There are I don't regret it, but there are a lot of tradeoffs that come with that. So yeah, I don't know. I'm still figuring it out. I mean, it's still are really early. A more, I think, deeper question that I've been having with a number of people in this room is you've now

create you and christie have created a life that you have the means to give your kids whatever they want more than take care of what they need you've you've made a lot of money and i know that wasn't your intention but it's happening we're just talking about your speaking fees right they're it's crazy how much people pay you how do you raise kids to be tough and have grit and be great providing citizens to society without the fact of like well spoiling them because you have the means in order to do it. Yeah, I have no idea. And we're trying to figure it out. I mean, I hope we can figure it out. I think about this a lot. There is some level that is, I worry about them like being hungry, you know, and having drive. And if you have a lot provided to you or if things are relatively easy, it's just different.

You're not going to be driven in the same way. And I don't know that you can really fake that. So there's some element of it that I do worry a little bit about. The best thing is to expose them, I think, to areas where it doesn't matter how much money you have, you know, like step on to any sports field. They don't care. You're going to win or lose. It doesn't matter who you play against. And so that part is nice. So I think elements of competition, whether it's sports or music or, you know, many other things that you could put them in, that it doesn't really matter what you're, where you come from or what you have. That could be good. I don't know. You know, you worry a little bit about like, on the one hand, you want to put them in good schools and live in a good neighborhood.

And like, you know, you want to position your kids well. And then on the other hand, I'm like, well, I don't want them to think like this is normal, you know, and to be ignorant or to miss, you know, what's going on in the larger world. So I'm not sure. It's still so early, you know, the oldest is two right now. So, you know, we're just trying to figure it out. But I do think that that's an important question to, like, kind of have top of mind and try to address over time. The second thing that's changed, obviously, is your book came out. And, I mean, I knew you thought it was good. I love to have read your stuff since you've been famous on the internet, which is a small corner of the internet. Now it's famous in the world. And so I'm curious how that fame has

impacted you given the number of people in the world that have ever sold 10 million books. I mean, I don't know how many. I know it's a very, very small number. And with that comes this level of fame. Like, how have you processed that? How have you handled that? Yeah, I don't know. I don't really feel famous. I mean, I know a lot of people have read the book or I don't know. I don't really have much interest in it. So like, first of all, I take a lot of steps to try to avoid it. So if you look at my Instagram account, there are no pictures of me. If you look at social media on Twitter or Facebook, like, there are no photos of me. It's just text. Like, my Instagram account is so weird. It's just like pictures of screenshots of quotes. And I do that intentionally. Like,

I always think about, I'm trying to build a business that is known by name, but not by face. So like Calvin Klein or Kate Spade or something like that. Some people, if you're really into fashion, maybe you know what Calvin Klein looks like if you're passing them on the street. But most people only know the name. And I think James Clear can kind of be that for just, you know, it's like an author who writes about a useful and actionable ideas and you don't necessarily know, you know, what I look like. You know, everybody's got a podcast now wants to do YouTube channel. So all these interviews now, like, you know, I got to get recorded and they put it on YouTube. So I'm starting to get recognized more. It's been a weird period. Like on the one hand, you had the book came out in 2018. And then it kind of like started to take off in 2019. Then the pandemic hit. so we didn't go anywhere for a year. And then we had two kids, so we didn't go anywhere for two years. So I kind of haven't been out that much. So it'll be interesting to see like throughout this year and as they get older and we start doing more like, will it be weird?

I don't know. I kind of feel like an author is sort of the perfect level of celebrity. You know, like imagine. So in 2021, I had like the number one selling book. Imagine if you had like the number one music album or the number one movie. Like Drake or Taylor Swift can't go anywhere. Yeah. But I go to a coffee shop and like nobody cares.

You know? So I think it's kind of in a nice little range where it's known to the people who read the book, but it doesn't really impact my life that much. I think about the follow-up, which I'm sure you're working on now. We haven't talked about it. But is there a way it's in a way paralyzing the fact that the thing killed so much? It's like, how do I follow that up? Or you have to say, I just can't think about that. I have heard people talk about this. So like Adele said this when after she wrote someone like you, she was like, you know, I'll never write a song as good at the sad. Which is like, that's got to be kind of a weird feeling to know that like your best work is behind you at such a young age. I think Elizabeth Gilbert said that about eat, pray love too, where she's like, you know, the best thing I've ever made is already done. I don't really think about it that way. I've seen some of my friends write best selling books and it kind of paralyzes them. And they have like these weird periods. Like one of them just only played video games for three months.

Like he just lives like, who am I to like have this success? And I'm trying to think about it like, it can just be a project that did well. Like, it doesn't have to be more than that, you know? Like, I tried really hard on it, and I poured five years of work into it, and I gave my best effort to, like, have it, you know, succeed and blow up. And this is the best possible outcome, you know, so to root for something else would be weird. But it doesn't have to be everything about me. It can just be a project that did well.

And then I can move on to the other stuff that I'm going to work on. And I'll try to do that well, too. How is – I mean, it's been some time now. It's been some years. So, I mean, you mentioned why that you probably – I had to delay it is because of family and that they're their priority. Do you have like a timetable or are you saying it'll come when it comes? For the second book? Yeah. My publisher has a timetable. I know. Which you delayed the last one a whole year. Yeah, I have already delayed this one over a year.

I don't know that I'm in a good period right now to write another one. I can't, first of all, I can't write a book the way that I wrote Atomic Habits because I had like a six to nine month period where I woke up, I worked on it for 12 hours a day, I went to sleep, I dreamt about it. I did it all over again. And like, it was just a very obsessive, intense, like almost dark period. And so I know how to write a good book, but I can't write a book in the way that I know how to do it. So I am a little worried about that. I'm like, I got to figure out a new way to write a book because the old way that I know doesn't work for my life anymore. So that's kind of interesting.

But also, yeah, like, there's just so much. I'm in this very weird space right now where this is kind of wealth of opportunity. So, like, what I'm saying no to has to ratchet up. I feel like I'm always three to six months behind on what I should be saying no to. And so there's just, you know, there's so many speaking gigs and we're working on an iPhone app. And the book is, you know, pulling all kinds of, I get, I get like 10 to 15 interview requests a day. I get three to five speaking requests a day. Obviously, I can't do all those.

So then you're figuring out systems for filtering all that. And then I'm writing my newsletter each week. So there's just, you know, there's a lot going on in addition to being a parent of young kids and trying to figure out that balance is something I'm still working on. We've talked a lot about the difference between results-based goals and process-based goals. Systems, you may call them. To me, I think that's one of the most beautiful parts about, like, what atomic habits. It's really about your systems and the process you have in place and kind of falling in love with that, marrying the process, divorcing the result kind of mentality.

I'd love for you to expand more on just as you've thought more about having process goals versus results-based goals. goals. Well, I'm someone who's very goal oriented to start. So like I lot pretty much everything I write is like a reminder to myself. You know, hey, stop focusing so much on the outcome. Think a little bit more about the process and, you know, all the other things in atomic habits are like that too. So I had this moment where I found this sheet that I had written in college and I'd written down a bunch of goals that I wanted to achieve. And about, I don't know, 30% or 40% of them I had hit. And the other ones I hadn't. And I was like, well, clearly writing down the goal wasn't the thing that made the difference. You know, like, obviously that wasn't the determining factor. And so then I

started to think about, like, what was it? Why, why did I achieve some of these and not others? And the ones that I was successful on, I almost always had a process for or a system for. And the other ones were just kind of like a vague wish. And so then I started to think about that connection between systems and goals and results and habits. And eventually I started to put a little finer point on the language. So like, what is a goal? So the thing you're optimizing for, the outcome that you're shooting for, your target. What is your system? It's the collection of daily habits that you follow.

And if there's ever a gap between your goal and your system, if there's ever a gap between your desired outcome and your daily habits, your daily habits will always win. You're like almost by definition, your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results. So whatever system you've been running, whatever collection of habits you've been following for the last year, or two years or six months, it's carried you almost inevitably to the outcomes that you have right now.

So this kind of like ironic thing in life is we also badly want better results. You know, we also badly want to get fit or make more money or reduce stress or whatever it is. But like the results aren't actually the thing that needs to change. It's like fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. You know, redesign the system and you'll be carried to a different destination. This was actually talking about Aaron Rogers brought this up recently. And he was a little bit puzzled at this question that was posed to him. because he was saying, I'm, I'm really focusing this year on the process, the process,

and less about the result and kind of being all in on the process. And it was posed to him, well, how do you know it's the right process? How do you know that the system is the right system? How, when to adjust versus when to marry it? Like, how do you know that? Like, what do you put in place for yourself to know, wait, the system is right? Yeah. Versus maybe it's not.

I kind of feel like it's easy in Roger's case because everybody, they're very clear rules for football, you know? I mean, first of all, everybody knows you're trying to win the Super Bowl. And then, like, there are all kinds of stats, completion percentage and touchdowns. You know, like, it's pretty easy for him to know is the process moving me closer to the things that we're trying to optimize for. It's rarely that clearly defined in real life. You know, like there is no Super Bowl of tech startups. There is no national championship of parenting.

Like, there's no way to know that you're clearly winning. And so that gray area, I think, makes it harder for daily stuff. I, the way that I deal with it is I try to ask. myself a series of questions, and I revisit those questions over time. So one of the questions I like is, what am I optimizing for? So, you know, you might optimize for making more money. Maybe you're optimizing for creative freedom. Maybe you optimize for family time. Like, it's a different answer for each person. And even for the same person, it's a different answer over time. So I'm different now that I was 10 years ago. And I'll probably want different things 10 years from now.

And so you have to keep coming back to that question, what am I optimizing for now? And that provides some clarity. Similar to that, I like the question of what season am I in right now? I think for a lot of ambitious people, it's really hard to, you have all these things you want to achieve, and it's hard to say no. And you know that you're talented and capable. And so you're like, I could do this if I focus on it, but then you get on the hook for too much and you start fracturing your attention, and then you can't make progress. So the way that I've dealt with that is to say, listen, you can do that at some point, but this just isn't the season for it. And so before I had to, you had to, kids, the work burner was turned on high and the family and friends burner was turned down low.

And I was in this season where I was really career focused. And then now it's kind of switched and the family burner's cranked up and the work burners turned down. And so whenever your seasons change, your habits often need to change. And that was easy for me to understand when it came to habits that like waste time. Okay, I have kids now. I can't watch as much TV or I shouldn't spend time on YouTube or whatever. It's harder for habits that serve you really well previously, but just maybe aren't a good fit anymore, that was much harder for me to give up, where I said, you know what, this habit actually did like provide a lot of benefit for my life, but it's just not a good fit for this current season. And releasing that has been a tougher challenge. But in a lot of ways,

focus is the art of knowing what to ignore. You know, it's not really figuring out where you're going to direct your attention. It's learning how to decline all of the other things that are competing for your time. And it's almost always items that are like three through six on your, your priority list that are the most dangerous because you have a good story for why you should do those things like it's number three for a reason you know that's why it's on there but in reality those are the things that are most likely to distract you from priorities one and two and because you have a good story for him so it's actually turning down the good uses of time to make space for great uses of time that is one of the more challenging things to do so what am i optimizing for what season am i in

I also like the question, can my current habits carry me to my desired future? So you figure out what you're optimizing for. You figure out where you want to go. And then you look at what your system is currently. And you're like, am I on the right path or not? And this is a big part about atomic habits and a big part about my style. It's like emphasizing trajectory over position. You know, there's a lot of discussion about position in life.

How much money's in the bank account? What's the current stock price? What's the number on the scale? We have all these ways of measuring our current position. And then usually, once you get the measurement, there's this kind of judgment or guilt that comes from that. Oh, we haven't achieved what we said we wanted to achieve yet. Or I'm not where I wanted to be. And what I like to encourage is to say, listen, let's stop worrying so much about our current position and focus a little bit more on our current trajectory.

Am I getting 1% better or 1% worse? Can my current habits carry me to my desired future? I'm on a good path? And if not, then something needs to change. And then the last question I'll offer just for this little section is, what is the work that keeps working for? me once it's done. So I think about this, like the highest leverage stuff that I do is work that continues to pay off for me after that hour is spent. So as an example, book came out. I did a bunch of interviews. Some of the interviews were on radio and some were podcasts. I don't really do radio

interviews anymore because as soon as we get off the air, the work that I just put in vanishes. Nobody's listening anymore. But a podcast gets recorded. And, you know, I've done 200 of them now. So there's somebody somewhere listening to an interview that I gave right now as we're sitting here. So it's almost like there are multiple versions of James out there. And my previous work is still working for me. And there's some stuff in life and business that is kind of like weeding a garden. You know, it's just, they're just tasks that have to be done done. And like nobody likes weeding a garden, but it just, you need to do it to keep the business running. So you can't always work on things that will continue to work for you. But if you can do something each day that will

continue to work for you once it's done, you turn around a year or two or three later and you have this like tidal wave of previous effort that is starting to compound and accumulate. And it's just really hard to beat a person who has that working for them. Like if you're starting out and you're building a new website and trying to build an email list, it's just, it's going to be really hard to catch up to where I'm at right now because I have 10 years of previous effort blog posts and interviews and social media posts that are all sending traffic to the website. I mean, you know, I've got thousands of people signing up each day and you're like, I want to get thousands of subscribers, but it's just the accumulation of all those days that are continuing to work. So I really like that question a lot.

What is the work that keeps working for me once it's done? I just love having a series of prompts that you can have for yourself to, if you're going to be honest to say, you have them here, you answer them honestly, and that's how it sets you up. I'm curious about how it goes for you when you don't feel good, because I think we're all good when we feel great. Yeah. But that's not life. There are lots of days when we don't feel great. What are the prompts or what are the system in place for you when it's like, I'm not feeling it? I have other stuff going on. That's hard.

That's kind of get in the way of your mind. How do you get back on track when you're not feeling it? In a lot of ways, I think the bad days are more important than the good days. Because like you said, anybody can show up when they feel good. You really get no separation on the good days. Still need to do it. It can't skip that day. But that's pretty easy to do.

But the bad days are the only days where you separate from the pack at all. It's kind of like the bad days are the ones that define. greatness because otherwise there's no margin between you and the average person. So I don't know. I fall into the same stuff everybody else falls into. You know, if I don't feel good, then maybe I skip the workout or I don't show up that day. But I try not to do that. And the methods that I have are I scale it down.

So I do this a lot with workouts. I won't feel like working out that day. So I'll tell myself, all you got to do is just do one set. You know, just like do one set and see how you feel. And almost always, as soon as I get the clothes on and get down there and, you know, I have a home gym. So I go, you know, as soon as you do one set, you're like, well, I'll do the whole thing. Yeah. So that initial friction is almost always the hardest part.

Yeah. And Ed Latimore has that quote where he says the heaviest way at the gym is the front door. Yeah. Like there are a lot of things in life that are like that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really about scaling it down, trying to master that first movement. So I just have these little stories that I tell myself about like, you only have to do one set or you only got to write one sentence, you know, and so that helps. There are other things that I have noticed social pressure does work for me. So two examples, the newsletter. So I send my newsletter out every Thursday. And I know that millions of people are waiting on it.

And that little bit of social pressure is enough for me to be like, okay, I have to, like, I have to find time to do this today. And, you know, I've been doing it for over 10 years now and I haven't, you know, I've probably missed twice or something. It's very consistent. And then the other example is atomic habits. There is an alternate universe where that book either isn't out yet or like is just came out a year ago or something like that. but the pressure of signing a book deal with a traditional publisher and having them expecting it from me probably got the manuscript done at least two to three years earlier than it would have happened if I didn't have that and I was just kind of writing it on my own. And who knows, like maybe I would have just kept spinning my wheels and not actually got it out.

So I think scale it down, try to make the first step as easy as possible. A little bit of social pressure or expectation that can help a lot too. And then if I do miss, so if I do make a mistake, skip the workout or, you know, miss the article or whatever. whatever. The most important thing is reclaiming the habit quickly. And this is something I feel like you see with a lot of top performers in different domains. People are human. Like the top people in any industry, they make mistakes like everybody else. But they tend to get back on track really quickly. They don't let slipping up become a new habit. You know, they don't let the first mistake spiral into more. And if you can do that, if you can reclaim your habits fast, then missing doesn't matter that much. You get to the end of the year and like it's just kind of a little blip on the radar. So I think having a plan for that, if I miss my workout on Monday, what is the plan? When am I going to get back there and make sure that I do it on Tuesday? Or, you know, like, how am I going to recover from that? And just knowing how you're going to do that makes it easier to get back on track.

So, yeah, those are a couple things. Let's go leadership focused. And this may happen in your life. I don't know. I'm guessing maybe something you say no to, but let's assume that this happens. A Fortune 100 CEO loves your stuff and says, can you advise me? I'm trying to put together like a world-class senior leadership team. And in this hypothetical play along, but what are the things you're saying,

all right, we got to have this, we got to have this, like what are the must-have qualities that you'd advise as senior leaders say, I got to have these things for the leaders on my team? Must-have qualities in the person you're going to hire? Yeah, the people are going to hire. I don't know. I'm probably like the worst person to ask this question, too. Like, my team is so small.

You know, like, I have one employee and I have no desire to expand. So I am at no threat of having a fortune one under company. And I do hiring so infrequently. So I don't know. I kind of feel like a lot of top performers in different areas, they have incredibly high agency. And the way that I would describe that is when you are told that something can't be done or something is difficult or something is unlikely, a lot of people will receive that feedback and be like, okay, guess we can't do that. Let's try to find something else. and then other people will hear that and it will start a story or a conversation in their head.

We're like, okay, but what would it look like if we could figure that out? And the person who starts from that place, like, I think I annoy people sometimes, but I'm like very like that. And it's fun to me to be like, okay, I know that, but like, I know you're saying it doesn't usually work like that, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a good reason why it can't. And so, like, let's figure that out. And I would, I like working with people like that because then they're like very interesting. problem solvers. So when you hear no, is that the end of the conversation or is that a start of the second conversation? I think that's a nice little dividing line. Obviously, for the given role, you want them to be competent in, you know, whatever the thing is that you're hiring. And then

almost every piece of good luck in life comes through people. So opportunities come through people. They aren't just like sitting out there that you like stumble across them. And so the person who is pleasant and nice to work with and outgoing or aggregating. various good at building relationships is more likely to come across good opportunities through the people and relationships that they build. And so I kind of feel like if we're looking for somebody who can bring great opportunities into the business, we're probably looking for somebody who is good with people as well. So I would say those two things in addition to the functional competence. I love one of the stories you've told from stage. I watched it years ago.

I think it was in Boise about quantity versus quality. You talk about a photography teacher at University of Florida, I believe. And I think this could apply beyond just the creative pursuits of people. I think it could be for our lives of essentially taking action. But I'd love for you to share that, the story of that photography teacher and quantity versus quality. Yeah. So an interesting idea.

This guy's name's Jerry Ellisman. He's this film photography professor at Florida. And on the first day of class, he came in. He said, all right, we're going to draw a line right down the middle of the room. And everybody on this side of the class, you're going to be judged based on the quantity of your work throughout the semester. So you make 100 photos in the lab and, you know, film and all that stuff and, like, go into the dark room. If you do 100, you get an A, you get 90, you get a B, 80 of C, and so on. Everybody in this side of the room, you're going to be judged by the quality of your work.

So you only have to make one photo in the whole semester, but it has to be the best photo that you can make. Ideal perspective, interesting, you know, so on, great composition. And so I got to the end of the term and this interesting thing happened, which is all the photos that he liked best, all the best work came from the quantity group, not the quality group. And the quantity group was out there trying things. They were experimenting. They were honing their skills. They were trying different, try on air. And they got better. The quality group spent most of the time theorizing, thinking about what a perfect photo would look like, trying to overthinking it, not getting in there. Their skills haven't been developed as well. And they ended up with the worst result. And I think

there are a lot of things in life that are like that. You want as many shots on goal as possible. It not only hones your skills, but ultimately, the person who takes one shot on goal, maybe goes in, maybe it doesn't. But if you take a thousand shots, like you're going to score at some point. And so if you can figure out a way to structure your business, structure your life so that you get a lot of shots on goal, at some point, something's going to go well. So I think quantity over quality is an interesting kind of metric to keep in mind, especially if you're in any kind of like creative pursuit. Yeah. You wrote recently in three to one, in your newsletter, whoever has the most fun wins. And that was one of my, I set three kind of goals here.

I wanted people to leave with their face hurting from smiling so much. And that's how you could tell if you had fun. And it, to me, it seemed like, someone said, oh, that seems like a departure. James has these systems and it's all that. But it's like, no, it's about fun. And I feel like I like the fact that you shine a light on we're also, like, what are we doing if we're trying to have some fun? Yeah, yeah. I mean, like I mentioned earlier, what are you optimizing for? Sometimes I think we take ourselves so seriously and we're optimizing for business results, whatever that means. And yeah, like this should be enjoyable. At some point, what are you going to do? Spend 40 years building a company and not have any fun at it. Like, it does sound terrible.

So I think shifting the target a little bit and reminding yourself of that is useful. Yeah. What are you most curious about right now? Well, I bought a cabin in the woods and I'm in the middle of like trying to build a new cabin. There's a pond in the property. So we need to like redesign that a little bit. There's ATV trails. And so like that's the thing I'm most excited about. And it's led me into like some really interesting areas like we're redoing this pond. And this is so niche. Like no one here will care about this. And we have to drain the pond because it has an algae problem. And then we got to regrade it. It needs to be deeper. It needs to be shaped differently. And like we're trying to figure out how do we create a healthy ecosystem there. So I'm

reading all these books about ponds now. And I reached out to this guy who like talks about how to build algae-free ponds. This actually comes back to what we talked about a minute ago, about high agency. So almost every landscaper that I talked to, landscape design company about building this new pond, they're like, yeah, we build natural ponds. And then you talk to him about it. And they're like, well, you know, once a year, you'll need to bring somebody out. They've got to dive down and like, rake the muck off the bottom of the pond. And then, you know, there's still probably going to be like an algae problem. So there's like some additives that we can put in the water. And I was like, okay, let's say I'm in the wilderness in Canada. And I walk across some pond. It's clear.

there's not an algae problem. What's going on here? Nobody is coming once a year to scrape the muck off the bottom. Nobody's putting additives in the water. So, like, clearly there's a way to do this. Like, what's happening there that isn't happening here? And what can we learn from that? And I think that's actually a really good example of that kind of high agency thinking.

Where, like, most people are told, well, I hired a landscape designer. They're the expert. They must know. So clearly, you can't do it that way. And I'm like, this doesn't make any sense. There are all kinds of, a million ponds in the world that don't have any treatment like this and they look fine. So clearly there's something else. going on. And I did that a lot with the launch of atomic habits too, where I was,

or like the creation of it. So where you try to like kind of, you take lessons from somewhere we're like, what's happening here and what can we learn from that? So like, what's happening with a healthy wild pond and how can we build a better one? So like with habits, everybody just talks about how hard it is to build good habits. But nobody ever says that about bad habits. You never say like, oh, I keep procrastinating on eating popcorn. They're like, oh, man, it's like so hard for me to get like get motivated to watch Netflix. You know, it's like so difficult. And isn't that kind of interesting? Like so, so let's let's like come up with a list of those behaviors and then let's go through that and be like, okay, why is that? Like why is watching Netflix so easy?

Why is it so frictionless to eat popcorn? And you just kind of go through this list of stuff. And that was ultimately where I started to come up with some of the laws that are now in atomic habits. Like you want to make it obvious. You want to make it attractive. You want to make it easy. You want to make it satisfying. And what you find is that a lot of things we typically cap, categorizes bad habits, they're obvious and attractive and easy naturally. You know, like how easy is it just to press a button on Netflix? Then you don't have to do anything. It's just like you let it ride versus, say, reading a book where you got to put effort

into flip each page. So some of those principles came from inverting what works for bad habits and applying it to good ones. And that concept of inversion, that is like such a flexible idea that you can apply to almost anything. You know, you sit down and you look at your business and you say, okay, how can we wreck this business in a month. Like if we wanted to just tank this thing, what would we do? And you'd be like, okay, we wouldn't be consistent. We wouldn't pay our bills. We'd hire people who aren't aligned with

our values. And you start going through that list. And then you're like, okay, obviously we need to like do the opposite of those things. And there's almost always some interesting insight that comes out of an exercise like that. Some maybe 80% of the answers are obvious. And you're like, yeah, of course. But then there's going to be a few things you're like, I actually hadn't thought about that before. And like maybe that's something we need to emphasize. writing. I've been beating this job for years. So some people are probably tired of me hearing it, but I think all leaders should have a writing practice. I definitely don't know what I believe or what I think until I write it down. You've been doing this for a long time. Let's say we get

the excuses. I'm too busy. I got too many meetings. You got too much stuff going on. I just don't, and I'm not good at it, which a lot of people say I'm not good at it. I'm curious, your thoughts on the benefits of having a writing practice for a leader, as well as a way to. A way to to make it a habit that's something you could do maybe every day to make you a better leader. So a lot of people have said things like what you said, you know, like writing is the antidote to confusion, basically, you know, like unless you write it down, you haven't thought about it clearly. Right. I would say that if you don't write, you know what you feel, but you don't necessarily know

how to express it. You don't know how to deliver it to your team or to your customers. You don't know what to say to get your feelings and your inside or your gut reaction out of your head. And that's where writing is helpful. In terms of like writing is difficult. I'm not good at it. My argument would be like saying that you're not good at writing because it is hard is kind of like saying you're not good at weightlifting because the weight is heavy. Like the point of it is that it is hard. The point is that it gets you to think and to express and clarify your thoughts. The point of lifting weights is that they're a little bit heavy so that you get stronger. So it's it's hard for me too. It's not easy for anybody,

but it's the effort of clarifying your thought. That is the value, the same way that the effort of lifting heavy weight is the value of working out. So I basically, what I'm getting across there is like, don't feel bad about it or feel like you shouldn't do it if it's challenging for you.

It's challenging for everybody. In terms of what to do to like build that practice, I'm not really a big fan of like trying to force yourself to do a habit just because you think you should do it. I think people do this all the time. They pick habits that they feel like they should build or that their peers expect them to build or that society wants them to build.

It's like, well, I should read more because they think they should be reading books. Or, you know, the most common news resolution is to go to the gym. I think a lot of people go to the gym because they feel like they should be working out. But like, not everybody wants to train like a bodybuilder. And that's fine. Like, there are tons of things you could do to live an active lifestyle. You could kayak or rock climb or do yoga or go for a walk. Like, you should pick the version of a habit that is most exciting and attractive and compelling to you.

And in many ways, that's the first hurdle to clear. So I think the question to ask yourself is, what would writing look like if it was fun and useful? What would this habit look like if it was enjoyable to me? What's the version of this habit that is most exciting or attractive? What's most appealing? And if you can figure that out, then you've already like won, you know, half the game. So I think choose the style that sounds best to you is that just like one thing that I find very easy for me. I like compressing things.

So I'll be like, let me read a whole, you know, let me read a chapter. or let me read a page of this book and then see if I can compress it into one sentence. Like I just, it's kind of like a little game. I think that's kind of fun. And then I can tweet it out. And so that's a style of writing that is very easy for me. It just seemed, it doesn't seem hard. I'm only writing a sentence.

So choose the version of it that feels most exciting to you. And then, you know, generally it's useful if you do it at the same time each day or you have some, you know, habits tend to be more consistent if you know where it's going to happen, when you're going to do it. and sometimes what day if it's not a daily thing. So, you know, this is called an implementation intention. If you write down, I will work out on Monday at 2 p.m. in this place. And just by filling out that sentence, you're much more likely to fall through. Sounds obvious, but a lot of the time people wake up and they feel like, oh, you know, I hope I feel motivated to work out today.

I hope I have time to write today. And they don't have a clear plan for when exactly it's going to occur. So a lot of people think they lack motivation, but what they really lack is clarity. And if you can be clear about that, then it becomes much easier to fall through. I'm going to open up in a second. I'll ask one more to give you a few seconds to think. So get ready. To me, one of the things you wrote recently that I loved is I think the world is full of people

who love to, I don't know the right word, but maybe hate on others or be pessimist. And the world is built by optimist. And you said we should be people who champion good ideas. And I think that is a great maxim for life as opposed to like wanting to hate on something or be the, oh, that will never work or that doesn't happen that way. Or we already tried that thing, that type of mentality. I'd love to hear more of your overall philosophy on why we should champion good ideas. Well, as you said, like usually it's the optimists who win. They're not always right.

The pessimists aren't always right either. But you need to bet on something, bet on a relationship, bet on a business, bet on, you know, something. you need to invest yourself in something in order to be exposed to the potential reward of it. So being optimistic about something, going all in on it, or at least giving part of your life to it, is required for you to get the outcome. So that's just a, if you're just pessimistic about things and shoot every opportunity down, then you don't have any exposure to the upside. Now, you may have less risk, so to speak, but the real risk there is that you never engage with anything

and then you've sacrificed your potential of what you could be. So there's there's risk either way. And I think the optimists ultimately end up with the rewards. This is another reason to have a lot of shots on goal, though, because you can't necessarily guarantee that you're going to win any individual time. So if you structure it in a way where you have a lot of attempts and you continue to bet on things and be optimistic, eventually you can get the upside. Okay.

So that's, that's one reason. Second thing is, this is kind of a pet peeve of mine, but like some people are problem solvers and other people are problem adders. So you come to somebody with an idea and some people immediately they start thinking about what can I do to contribute to this. How can we figure that out? How can we wrestle with reality and make this work? And then other people spend all their time telling you about why it won't work or why it's not a good idea. The first thing they see is not the opportunity of the idea, but all the pitfalls that could come in the future. And my thing is like, listen, I will wrestle with reality. It's just like at what point do you need to do that? So

In the beginning, we're trying to come up with ideas that are interesting, useful, valuable, actionable. And then, like, at that point, your job is not to be your own bottleneck. Early on in the process, like, your job is to just come up with like, what would the magical outcome be? What would the awesome outcome be? Let's start there and then work backwards from magic, you know? And as you start that process of working backwards from magic and what that amazing outcome would be, you're forced into solving problems that arise along the way. But if you do it in that direction, then you only have to solve the problems that actually exist, that you actually face.

If you start by generating a bunch of problems that could potentially happen, now you're solving problems and thinking about things that you may not even have to deal with. And so would you rather be more prepared in some cases for things that won't actually happen? Or would you rather be less prepared and then deal with these problems that rise along the way? And I think a lot of that is just personality. Like some people's personalities are they would rather worry about everything that could possibly happen and feel like they can prepare for as much as possible than to deal with problems in the moment. And I think entrepreneurs are in this interesting situation where ultimately entrepreneurship boils down to do I trust myself to figure it out? Because there is no playbook. Everybody's business is different. Everybody's going through this process without really knowing exactly what's going to come next.

But if you trust yourself to figure it out, then you can just face the problems as they arise. And then you kind of work your way through it. And eventually you build up this confidence. We're like, yeah, like I can handle that. And there's a kind of like standard narrative about mental toughness and preparation that is grit, persistence, determination in the face of challenge. I'll force my way through it. We're going to stick to this system no matter what. And then there's, I think, maybe a more resilient or more useful form of mental toughness.

which is flexibility, adaptability. I can work with this, given the resources that I have. I can be happy no matter who I'm around or what I'm doing. And that kind of mindset, like the ultimate form of mental toughness, the ultimate form of preparation is the ability to deal with uncertainty. Because then you're prepared for whatever comes up. And there is almost always, well, there is, there is always more that could happen than what you can imagine could happen.

And so the ability to deal with uncertainty, the trust, that you'll be able to figure it out is far more important than your ability to plan for whatever scenario you could potentially imagine. This doesn't mean that planning is not important or that preparation is not valuable. Planning and preparation are very important. It's just that at some point, planning becomes its own form of procrastination. And if your preparation is complementing the actions that you're taking, great. It's doing a lot of value. If your preparation and planning, your research are substituting for actions that you should be taking, now they've outlived their usefulness and it's no longer valuable.

I had a great college football coach at Miami University name Terry Hepner, and he said to us five times a day, have a plan, work to plan, plan, plan for the unexpected. Have a plan, work to plan, plan for the unexpected, like every day knowing, like, you know, if you play sports, you have anything can happen. Sure. A great plan. you face you face contact against the defense and something happens and that's that's how it is all the time i love that kind of agility in the moment of have a plan work to plan plan for the

expected questions if you'd like to go go ahead rob yeah so you said something early on that you feel like you're always three to six months behind saying no and i feel the same way a lot of times but i'm you know i get to an event that sounded like the right thing at the right at that time but then i get there and a week out i get this oh shit man what i'd i could admit to that. Yeah. And I've, you know, I've eliminated vendor trips. I've eliminated a lot of things, but I just can't seem to get ahead of it. So, you know, you talk about habits and stuff. What are you doing to square that up a little bit more? I, so I've noticed that I can't really be trusted to be in control my calendar anymore. Like I, I will say yes to stuff. And I don't want to,

you know, so like here's some examples. Earlier this week, I was on the call with, I'm doing the speaking event next month. And we were on the call and they're telling me about the events. These are called pre-event calls. They always want to do one. I always say I don't want to do them, but sometimes we end up doing it. And they were like, hey, I said, okay, great, I feel good about the event. Is there anything else you guys need for me? And they said, oh, well, one thing, like, could you film a video saying, hey, I'm really excited about the event, looking forward to it? And then we'll share it on social media and promote it. And that sounds like a small ask, but now I got to find time to do that thing. Well, in the moment, like, here I am, looking at this

person on Zoom. So I'm like, yeah, sure, like, that's no problem. And then I get off the call, I'm like, I don't want to do this. You know, like, now I got to find another time. to fit that in. So I can't be trusted for stuff like that. Like I say yes to things like that too much. And so we're starting a new system now. I've progressively have gotten more and more extreme with it. And the latest version is I'm not going to handle my email inbox anymore because if I see the email and I know it exists, then I'm going to say yes to stuff I shouldn't say yes to. So I hired an executive assistant. She starts next to next month. And she's going to field every email and act as a buffer for me. And then she's going to prioritize the list and come to my house.

couple times a week and say, here are the things that I think you should, you know, make a decision on. And it's going to be so much easier for me to say no to her than to the actual person. So that's, that's going to be the new, the new system. There's another one that I'm facing a lot now. So I get a text from a friend. And they'll say something like, hey, you know, I'm hosting this conference. Do you mind if like, you know, can you come and like talk or whatever? And I'll do stuff like this for Ryan because I live 10 minutes away. But, you know, I had a buddy texted me the other day. It's like, oh, I got a conference in San Diego. I'm like, look, I'm not flying across the country to talk at a conference for free and spend two days away from my kids.

And, you know, like, it's just, it's just a consequence of volume. And so, but that puts me in a tough spot because now I got to answer this text from a friend. And I'm like, it's really hard when you're like, okay, I know the person. So I think actually we're going to turn my phone into a business phone. And the executive assistant is going to handle all the text and phone calls that come from it. And they're going to go into the same file that all the emails go into. And then she'll be like, look, you got a text from this person and email about this. and we'll just go through it.

And it'll be the same way. It'll be easier for me to say no to that and have her text back and say, hey, I'm the executive assistant. This is the business phone. Like, you know, blah, blah, blah. So creating a little bit of a buffer is the main thing that I'm doing right now. But there are a lot of other things that we've done over the years to try to automate things. It sounds kind of similar to what you're talking about with getting rid of vendor trips or things like that.

There's just been progressively, there's more and more things in the business who are like, what can we automate? What can we outsource? What used to get a reply, but now can just be on the. contact page as like an FAQ. So there's that's a continual process, you know, and there's, there's never an end to it. But that's my, that's my latest system. Question? Yeah, follow up with an executive assistant who, presumably you don't, didn't know prior to the interview process. How do you ensure that she maintains the values and knows the things that you think are interesting?

And how does she know it to pass you, past you and not filter out? Yeah, that's a good question. It's going to be learned over time. So I have one employee right now. She started as an executive assistant. but she's way more than that now. She's basically like a marketing director. I mean, she has a very broad skill set. So she's been with me for seven years, and she will overlap for three months with the new person. And so there'll be a lot of transfer of knowledge there between the two of them.

They'll have a lot of calls. She'll teach her all the systems and how everything flows right now in the business, where the different forms go and communication methods and all that. And then she's going to come to my house multiple times a week. And so there'll be a lot of just downloading of kind of my style and approach and whatnot. So we'll ease her in. and take a little bit of time to make sure that the overlap is good. I don't know that there's any immediate way that you can do it.

I mean, when somebody comes in on day one of the job, they can't just download everything from the last 10 years. So having, I know a lot of businesses like to have standard operating procedures and things like that, documentation. I don't have that. We tried it for a little bit, but it just doesn't make sense with two people. It's not, you know, it's not worth it. Like, I can be the document.

We can just talk the next day. So if you have a big team, you know, if you've got dozens of employees or hundreds or thousands, like, yeah, of course, you need to have stuff written down. But we're so small that I don't think it's necessary. So, yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Alec. Yeah.

So what are some like traits or, you know, something that you do to kind of like sharpen your ability to add value to yourself? Hmm. It's a good question. I think having time to think is a really important part of my process. It's very, if you're busy the whole time, if you're so busy that you can't be thoughtful, that you can't sit down and, like try to look at your business from outside and above, it's really hard to have a better

strategy because you're just, you're just busy getting the work done. So I, I need at least an hour a week and preferably more than that to sit and just think about the business and try to look at it from a high level. That usually leads to me discovering where I'm useful and where I'm needed and where I'm not and what I can kind of offload to other people. I have, you know, I kind of made a point earlier about talking about how small my team is, but really I do have a lot of employees, they're just partners. So I have a book agent. I have a speaking agent. And the speaking agency has a bunch of salespeople on that staff. So like all the requests that I get go to them. They just happen to be a W2 for a different company. Right. So it's there is like a big business happening there.

But I have very strategically done that because I don't want to be, I don't want to spend time doing one on ones talking about promotions or salaries, dealing with HR problems, filing payroll. I don't want to spend any time doing that stuff because to me, that is all, it's all time that isn't any actual work. Like, it's stuff that has to happen for the business to run, but it's not me shipping a new book. It's not me sharing a new newsletter. There's no product that got created because of the effort I put in there. So my thinking is, all right, I'd rather partner with other companies, maybe give up a little bit more of the upside. Like maybe they get paid a little bit more than what I would pay them internally. But I don't have to spend any time.

doing all those other things. And so all of those hours that I just saved on management and overhead can now go into creating the next thing. And it's way more valuable for me to create another bestselling book or to add another thousand people to the newsletter than it is for me to spend that time, you know, managing somebody so that I can save, say, 25 to 50 grand a year that I would otherwise pay to, you know, the other company to manage them. So I think it's carving out time to think about the business from a high level.

and then trying to identify what are the areas that I, like, can cut out or offload to other businesses or partners and spend my time only on the things that deliver the most value. There's another question that I like to ask sometimes. I did this with my wife's job one time. She's like, just stop it. And she spent so much of her time in meetings. Like, that was just, you know, so much of her day was spent that way. And I was like, look, she, so she ran large events.

She worked for a university and she would organize like commencement or graduation and, you know, stuff like that. And I was like, okay, but what if there was a way to run graduation and to get all the vendors there, do all the things you need to do, but not have to be in these meetings all the time? She's like, well, that's not how it works. And I was like, okay, but like, you know, what if it could? And I do that kind of thing a lot with my business where I'm like, what is the, what is the outcome we're actually trying to get? Like in that case, what we actually want is a really seamless graduation experience for 4,000 guests. That's what we're actually trying to get to. We're not, if there was a way to do that and not have any meetings, then we should. should do that. Like that the meetings are not the thing that we're trying to create. That's not the end product. And so I do that over and over again with my business. Like what is the end result

that we're trying to build? What are all these middle steps and can we cut any of them out? And so there's just like a lot of that over and over again. One more. Liam. Yeah. So back to your comment about it's important to know what season of your life you're in and your infant season. So my experience has been that the season tends to change out there before it changes in my own head. Yeah. So any advice about making that transition a little bit more paid for it yeah it does it does happen out there first i think i know for myself like i feel like so two examples when i started my business it took me probably 18 months to learn how to manage myself so you know i'm working from home nobody's expecting anything of me now i get to

choose what hours i work and it took me like a year and a half to figure that out same kind of thing when i we had our first kid it probably took me i mean in a lot of ways i'm still figuring out we're two and a half years in but um it was definitely over a year before i you know the external world had change for a while and I'm trying to force fit old habits into this new lifestyle. Partially, I don't think you're ever going to get it perfect. Like you're never going to notice the moment right then. You know, partially you need to feel a little bit of that tension before you start to be like, okay, something needs to change. But it's really just about self-awareness. You know, the process of behavior change almost always starts with self-awareness. And so I find questions to be the best

form for that. And so the questions I talked about earlier, like what am I optimizing for? What season is it? having that hour to sit down and ask yourself some of those questions and just try to realize, where am I right now and what would be most useful? There's this venture capital firm named benchmark. And most of the time people think about venture capital is investing in like the future of business. And their whole motto is no, actually the future doesn't really matter. What we're trying to do is to see the present as clearly as possible. And I think that's actually a good definition of what's going on. Like the future is already here. You know, sometimes people talk about like in the future we'll like, you know,

have digital lives and we'll be spending all of our time once, you know, like living in the metaverse and stuff. I'm like kind of we already do that. Like we just look at our screens constantly, you know, like so much of your life is lived digitally already. How you feel it's all baked into your Twitter feed or Instagram or whatever. So that is in the future. That's just seeing reality clearly.

And can you scale that down to yourself and think about like, okay, what if I'm being very clear about what my current reality is, what my day is actually. being spent on. What does that tell me about what's the system I'm in and what habits I need? Yeah, but good question. One of the questions I like to close with regularly because I can do more too. I got time for you. I don't know if there was one or two. I don't want people to have a question. Yeah, go ahead. I just got a question. So you mentioned that I can I say you've got problem solvers and people that feed to five problems. Yeah. So I've got my one business spot.

It's like if you throw an idea out there, it's like you'll immediately get you with like, yeah, this is this out there's this out there already. It'll tell you all the reasons it won't work. Yeah, exactly. And find, like, out there's this competition already out there. It's not worth it. And eventually when you turn him around, it's one of the best workers out there. But is there a way that you could suggest to sort of like speed up that process to get him out of that thinking?

That's his default. Yeah, I don't know that I'll have a good answer. But what it made me think of is that's actually a very useful form of questioning if it's at the right time in the process. So there's like this series of questions of like, does this need to be. said, does this need to be said right now? And does this need to be said by me right now? And going through that, like that little thinking exercise, you're like, okay, there is, it's really helpful if we can try to preemptively solve some of these problems we're going to face. But maybe let's not do it as the first default to the discussion, right? Like right now,

we're just trying to like open up the opportunity space and think about what is possible, what we could achieve. And if you don't, if you don't act as your bottleneck early on, you start like poking and prodding in some of the different corners. And like sometimes the opportunity shifts a little bit. And you realize something a little bit different than what you were originally going to do. But if you start to put barriers up right away, you almost never, the conversation never even gets there because you shut it down too early. So I, you know, I like to think really big about stuff and try not to hinder myself early on. Even if I already am seeing some of the problems with it, I don't worry too much about solving them early.

Maybe I let them sit there and they start to influence the opportunity a little bit, but I'm not getting worried about it. And then once we start to clarify, because there are a lot of other things to figure out too. Like it's not just about is there a problem with executing on this? It's also like, is this what we want to do? Is this how I want to spend my time? You know, like for me, one of the questions I ask myself in my business a lot is, okay, if we drew a box and said, this is how I want to spend my days.

and then inside that box, we can start asking questions like, how can I make the most money possible? Or how can I reach the most people? How can I make the biggest impact? But outside that box, there's a bunch of other stuff, but I don't want to do any of that

because it's outside how I want to live my days. And I actually think a lot of people don't think about it through that constraint. They think, how can I make the most money possible? Or how could I impact the most people? And then they find themselves on the hook doing a bunch of stuff where they're like, I actually don't really like this lifestyle that much.

And so constraints can be helpful, but I think they just need to kind of arise at the right time in the conversation. So I don't know if that'll help you, you know, deal with this problem. But that's kind of how I think about it. Go ahead, Matt. Sir, if you were to write a revision one on how to say it would change, modify, delete, expand on. Yeah, I have a lot of notes that I would, like, for a second version already, have you got like this big long list of stuff. Most of it is pretty minor, new examples or there's like, you know, a phrase that I came across later that, oh, I feel like that expresses that idea better.

It's just stuff like that. the two things that aren't in the book that are that I would add or that I would you know shift a little bit. The first one is I had this I had this chapter. It was literally like the last week of Atomic Habits before I had written the whole thing and then I have to send it to the publisher a week later. And I scrambled and tried to write an entirely new chapter that I was going to squeeze into the book. And it got to be the night before when I was supposed to send it. And it was like 2 a.m.

And I finished the chapter. But then I read through it and I was like, this chapter got sucks. And I was like, yeah, you. idiot. Of course it sucks. You just spent a week on this. You've spent five years on the rest of the book. Like, just cut it and stop trying to force it in. And so I took it out. But that chapter was all about timing. It was about choosing the right time of day or the right time of week to build a habit. And so I do think there's something important in that little kernel. If you're, if you're trying to build a meditation habit, many people, first thing in the morning or early in

the day is a great time to do it. You make your cup of coffee and then you meditate for 60 seconds. It makes a lot of sense. It's really nice. And generally speaking, it's better to do stuff early in the day than later because the day doesn't get away from you. I just saw this line the other day, Ali Abdolf, I have this quote where he said, one of his professors told him an hour before 9 a.m. is worth two after five. And I was like, oh, that's, that's pretty good. So just getting stuff done early in the day. It tends to be better. But what if you have, I don't know, hypothetically, two kids under the age of two. That seems like it would be terrible time to meditate because you're trying to get pants on your kid and like, you know, scrambling to get breakfast.

Like, it's just not a good fit. So finding the right time. for habits is really big. So that was one. And then the other one, and I think if I had to pick one thing that was most important, that didn't make it into the book, it was probably this,

which is the influence of friends, or the influence of the social environment on your habit habits. I do have a chapter where I talk about family and friends, but I think it's even broader than that. So like, we're all part of multiple groups. It's like this group is one example. And those groups have expectations.

They have social norms for how you act and what you do. And like, I could be wearing a bathing suit right now, but that would be weird. It would violate every expectation about what we have and how you act in an environment like this. And so in a sense, I chose what I wore today, but only sort of, you know, like the menu of options was pretty restricted based on the group that I was in. And that kind of thing exerts influence on your habits all the time. And so the groups that you are a part of, the tribes that you belong to, the spaces you go into each day, they have an enormous effect on the choices that you make. take and when habits are go when habits go with the grain of the expectations of the group when they align with the social norms they're pretty attractive people want to do them because it's

like hey i get it i fit in i belong and when they go against the grain of the group they're kind of unattractive and they're high friction and so i think the punchline the takeaway is you want to join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior because if it's normal in that group then you can rise together um but if it's not normal If it goes against the expectations of the group, then you got to choose between do I want to maintain these relationships or do I want to add friction to the experience. So getting those two things aligned, I think is a really important concept. I love it. That's the whole point of this thing, dude.

Like, you just encapsulated perfectly. Any other questions? I have one more if nobody else. You have one? Yeah, go ahead. James, what's something that people misunderstand about you? I don't know. I don't walk around feeling misunderstood.

I feel like maybe there's this assumption. because I have a public brand that I like like the public image or would like the attention, but I actually don't like it very much. It's always about the ideas. It's about just being useful and trying to provide something actionable. So maybe that would be surprising. You know, it's kind of like, sometimes I surprise myself with that a little bit. It's like, okay, you say you don't want this, but you keep shipping these newsletters out each week, you know. But I think the tradeoff is worth it. You know, like I just got a message from somebody last week who lost a bunch of weight after reading the book. And I don't know, there's a bunch of stuff like that. And so I, I don't know, there's a bunch of stuff like that.

And so I habits have been around for a very long time, and they will be around long after I'm gone. And so I am just adding my little bit to the pile. But it feels good to make a little contribution and to feel like you added your little bit of knowledge to the pile of humanity. And yeah, people find that useful and helpful. Then I think that's great. And I can I can live with that trade off if people are getting value out of it. One of the assumptions somebody might make is that you are maybe almost not even human because obviously if he wrote the book on habits, his habits is a habit is. That does come up sometimes.

People assume like, oh, the habits guy must have like all these habits down the way. Like they made me make, wait, he's not a perfectly framed robot who has perfect habits. Surprising how much of a mess this guy is. Yeah, I told my publisher this when I was writing the book. I was like, so ironic how much writing this book is like wrecking all the habits in my life. And she said, you know, we write the books we need. And I think that definitely resonates. Like that's my experience.

Why did I get interested in this topic? Because I need it like everybody else, you know? Like, do you procrastinate? sure, all the time. Probably procrastinating on something right now as we're sitting here. You know, like, do you ever put too much emphasis on the goal and not enough on the system? Yeah, of course. And so that's what I was saying earlier. Everything in the book is a reminder to myself. So yeah, I think maybe you could assume that or you could assume sometimes people will look at my wife and be like, what's it like to live with him? Like, is he always like, you know, questioning your

habits? I'm like, oh, God, that sounds terrible. You know, like, who wants to be around somebody like that? Like that sounds awful. So I have no interest in that. And I think that's actually one thing that has made the book successful. Most people don't realize this, but it's a book about habits, but it never tells you, I never say in atomic habits, what habits you should build. It's not prescriptive. It's not intended to be that way. It's just a toolkit of strategies. And then you can decide what tool is the best fit for you. And I have like zero interest in telling people how to live their lives. All I'm trying to do is share useful strategies. And then people can choose how to live their lives. And hopefully they'll be a little bit better equipped to, you know, do the things they want to do.

So good. Any other questions? We're good? To close, I ask this question and I phrase it the way I do, but I think it applies to all people. You're meeting with a recent college grad, 24 years old, whatever, and they say, James, man, like, not necessarily I want to do what you do, but they want to be a productive member of society. They want to do good. They care about adding value to others. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person? Well, I think the questions we talked about earlier are better than giving advice. You know, questions, advice. advice is actually kind of brittle. So you give advice, and even if it's a good idea, it's very context dependent. And like, let's take, so I'll give a little bit of an example and then I answer your question. But like, let's say you want to play in the NBA. And then you're like, what does LeBron do? Like, what's he eating? What's his diet?

You know, how's he training? And so they're like, I'm going to do what he does. And they're like, well, that seems like pretty good advice. Like follow one of the best basketball players ever and do what they do. But actually, it turns out LeBron's in year 20 of his career. And he's trying to lose weight, not gain weight because he wants to extend his career. And he's just trying to be, you know, more flexible and resilient on the court. He's not trying to get stronger.

So if you did his weight training routine, maybe it doesn't make sense for you because you're 16. So, or 24 or whatever. So, like, you know, inheriting the advice or the ideas, the strategies of successful people, it doesn't always make sense because they're in a different place. Maybe you could say, well, I should do what LeBron did when he was 18. You know, like I should do what he did early on. And that sounds good, but even that is really context dependent. So finding one example of success.

actually isn't very useful. What's much more useful is if you can find like 10 or 100 examples, and then you try to identify patterns across people. So look at a lot of successful people and then see what the common patterns are. And then you got a little bit of a signal that, hey, this is probably something that we're thinking about. If it's just something one person did,

no matter how much of an outlier they are, you can't really learn that much from it. So I think that's the first thing. Be careful about who you make your heroes and look for patterns rather than stories. The second thing is all those questions we talked about earlier. What am I optimizing for?

Can my habits carry me to my desired future? What season am I in? You know, like those are things that are very personal. And you should ask yourself those questions and come up with the answers for yourself rather than trying to just hope that somebody will give you a roadmap on how to live your life. I am very biased towards entrepreneurship

because I identify as an entrepreneur and I love it. So I am like constantly kind of ushering people in that direction. But it's not a good fit for everybody. And I think those questions can help reveal whether it's a good fit for you or not. But if you do feel like, you got that inkling of like starting your own thing, then I would say, like if I was talking to

myself when I was 24, I've been like, trust yourself more. You can do it. Your parents and your friends, who I have very supportive parents and friends, but they want you to be safe and what you want is to grow. And those two things are not always the same. And so they have your best interest in mind, but they're just emphasizing or optimizing for something else. And that was surprising to me early on in my entrepreneurial career. I had some people, people surprise you, you know, like people who you think will be your biggest advocate or like love it. They'll be there for you, but then they'll be asking questions like, oh, you think about doing something else or, you know, whatever. And then people who you'd be like, oh, they won't care at all will be like, oh, dude, I saw what you're doing.

That's so cool. You know, like, really? Like, I did not think that you would care about this. And so let people surprise you, you know, like, be okay with that. And don't be like banking on the support from one person and not hearing from another. Like, just take it. it comes. Yeah. So anyway, that's kind of a range of ideas. I don't know that any of that's going to fully, you know, some things. I just want to say, man, I'm so grateful for you and the ideas you put out in the world. Obviously, our friendship and going back to that lunch of me, like, I don't know if that's a good idea. It shows, obviously, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. But the fact that you just keep, you keep going and provide so much good for the world,

man, it means a lot. And obviously, we're going to continue this as we progress. I really appreciate dude, give it up for James Clear. Thank you all. It's the end of the podcast club. If you are a member of the end of the podcast club, send me a note. Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know some of the key learnings you picked up from this great conversation with James Clear.

I am so thankful for James for surprising everyone, showing up to close the event. My 20, 23 Learning Leader Growth Summit in Columbus, Ohio. It was so much fun. A few takeaways from my notes. quantity and quality, the parable of the pottery class, which stems from the University of Florida Film Photography Professor Jerry Uelsman when he divided his class into two groups. One was to produce a picture every day. The other was to produce one perfect picture at the end of 30 days.

And what happened as a result of this experiment? Well, the quantity group, the one that was busy producing pictures each day, destroyed the quality group, the one that just met and, and thought about and theorize on what would be best. Their work was not nearly as high quality as the group that was working and iterating and producing work. So what does that say for us? We need to put in the reps.

We need to do the work. Show up each day consistently and iterate on what we're learning in order to get great. Then we should champion good ideas. We need to bet on something, bet on a business, bet on a relationship. We need to bet on something. You have less risk if you're being a pessimist or not going all in on something, but you also limit your upside, and we do not want to limit our upside. It's worth it to be a champion of good ideas and to be an optimist.

The optimist rule of the world. The optimists are the ones who win long term. Then finally, I thought this message from James was so apropos based on the people in that room, members of my learning leader circles. It was so great. The key, if you want to build habits that last, is to, join a group where the desired behavior is the normal behavior. And that's what that room was all about.

The people in that room, growth-oriented, kind, caring, giving, curious, so intelligent. Ah, it was just such an amazing time. And I'm very grateful for each and every person who showed up and traveled from all over the world to be there. And certainly grateful for James for helping us close the event. I want to say thank you for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leaders Show with James Clear. I think James will help you become a more effective leader

because you continue to do this and you continue to go to Ryanhawk.net, which will launch you into iTunes, Apple Podcasts. And once you're there, you write a thoughtful review and rate the show, hopefully five stars. And by doing that, you are continuing to give 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 you soon.

Can't wait.