Master These Habits So You DON'T WASTE Another Year Of Your Life AWAY! | James Clear & Lewis Howes

It's true that luck and randomness and misfortune, it's true that all that stuff is going to happen to you and you can't control everything, every card that's dealt to you in life. But it's also true that you influence the situation. And so the only, I think you.

Got to have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really?

Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes.

When it comes to setting goals and accomplishing goals, and a lot of people are thinking about goal setting at the end and beginning of a year, Sure. When it comes to setting and accomplishing them, what do you think is the difference between successful and unsuccessful people on broad terms?

Broadly speaking, you know, obviously every situation is different, so it's hard to say for sure, but I do think there are some patterns or some useful things that you can kind of keep in mind. So one of the framings that I talk about in Atomic Habits is a lot of the time everybody starts this conversation with what results do I want? So people set New Year's resolutions and they're like, I want to be the kind of person who loses a certain amount of weight, or I want to be the type of person who makes, you know, a certain amount of money next year or whatever. And so they set this, this outcome that they want and they think, okay, if I'm going to lose 40 pounds, then I need to come up with a plan. So I'm going to follow this diet and I'm going to go to the gym four days a week. And so we have the result that we want and we got the plan for achieving it. And most of the time the conversation stops there. We just sort of assume, Hey, if I do this thing and follow through on this plan, then I'll be the person I want to be is kind of the implicit assumption. Like, I'll be more like who I hope I will be. And my argument is let's flip that on its head and start by asking ourselves not what do I want to achieve, but rather who do I wish to become? You know, who is the type of person I want to be? How do I want to be spending my days? what's the kind of identity I want to have? And then you can ask yourself, what habits reinforce that identity? So maybe rather than saying, I want to lose 40 pounds and I'll go to the gym four days a week, you say, I want to become the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And you can see how that gives you a different frame or a different lens. You know, suddenly it becomes a little bit less about what you do in the gym on any particular day. and it's a little bit more about just showing up and being that kind of person and being consistent. And you give yourself permission to still feel good even if you only have five minutes to work out that day because you're reinforcing that identity rather than, you know, a lot of the time we do this weird thing with goals, which is we say, I want to lose 40 pounds in the next six months. And then six months passes and you've only lost 17 pounds. And so you feel like a failure cuz you didn't hit this arbitrary target that you set in the beginning. But in fact, you should be feeling great cuz you're making progress, you know, like you should be feeling really good about the fact that you're in a better position now than you were six months ago. And so goals kind of like play with our minds in that way. And that's why I think it can be helpful to focus on who's the type of person I wanna be, what.

Kind of identity do I run or reinforce, and are my habits supporting that? I think identity is so key and it's a lot of, you know, a lot of people say they want something, but their actions don't. enforce the identity behind who they want to become. What is the part of your identity that you're most proud of in the last couple of years since, since launching the book and since now, you know, being a father of two young kids? What is the identity that you've had to shift going into? I'm a successful writer. I do this every day. I've written this bestselling book that is phenomenon. Now, I'm becoming a father. And how do you balance both of those identities, I guess?

That's a really good question. You know, you see this a lot in different areas of life. So in my case, I've had a couple different identity shifts. You probably had this too, given your athletic career. For a long time, I was an athlete. I was a baseball player. And so when my career ended, I was like, what am I now? You know, like this thing was a huge part of my life for, you know, 17 years. And then all of a sudden, I'm not doing that anymore. So it felt like this loss of identity. I probably had a two or three year period where to call it a morning is probably overstating it, but there was, if something felt like a morning, it feels like a morning though. Yeah, it kind of, if something felt lost, you know, it was like, man, I feel like a part of me is gone now. So you hear that happen from a lot of people in the military as well. You know, they'll be like, their identity is I'm a soldier, and then they leave the military and they become a civilian, and it's kind of like, well, who am I now? They sort of feel like they lost their footing. and the way that I describe it at this point is I'd like to think about life as a series of seasons. And so one question I ask myself is what season am I in right now? And so before I had kids and before the book came out, I was in this really career heavy season and my identity was tied up in like, I'm a very hard worker. I try to always provide the maximum amount of value to my audience. I'm not gonna let the number of hours that needs to be done to achieve this or accomplish this outcome, like block me from trying. you know, like, I'm just going to work my way through it. And then I have this shift in seasons. And, you know, now, like, a big part of my identity is being a dad, and you lose a lot of hours, working hours, that are now focused on family. And I love that, right? I love that part of it. I love the family part of it. But I still feel like I lost this other part of being the hard-working entrepreneur. So for sure, I'm still working through that right now. I mean, my kids are young, but. But it's just a, it's a signal is a shift in seasons. And usually when your seasons shift, your habits often need to shift with it. And I found myself kind of trying to force fit some of my old habits into my new lifestyle and they weren't like serving me anymore. Which habits? Main thing that I struggled with were creative habits. So it was all around writing and reading. And usually I was spending a lot of hours each day working on that. And now it's like, Hey, instead of having four hours a day to do this, Now you have four hours a week. So how do you figure out, like one of the questions I had for myself, especially during that first year was, okay, I know how to perform at a high level under the previous number of hours, but I don't have that anymore. So it's kind of like a lifestyle that doesn't work for me. So now how do I perform at a high level under a completely new set of constraints? And I'm still figuring that out to some degree, but like one thing I did was I restructured the newsletter. So for the first three years of my career, the habit that kind of launched my career was I wrote a new article every Monday and Thursday, and those were usually like about 2000 words. And I would spend somewhere between the shortest amount of time I ever spent was like eight hours on an article. Most of the time it was somewhere between like 15 and 20. And the really long ones would be like 30 or 40, but that was rare. It's amazing.

So it was basically like that kind.

Of was my full-time job was I, you know, I do 15 hours on an article on Monday and then I do 15 hours for the Thursday article. and then the rest of the time throughout the week, it would be, you know, the rest of the stuff to run the business. And I did that for the first three years, but then I had to work on the book, so I kind of changed it while I was working on the book, but I had the same number of writing hours. And then the book comes out and then I have kids, and now I don't have any of that time anymore. So I restructured the newsletter so that I could do it in a couple hours, usually about two hours. So now I can just do it on one day, I just need one morning and I can do it in those two hours and it's done. And rather than writing these long form articles, now I do, I call it 321, but it's three short ideas for me, two quotes from other people, and then one question to think about for the week. And this is another thing I try to do just as an entrepreneur in general, but also for my overall life. I like to play this little game, this little thought experiment where if I have constraints that I have to stick to, like in this case, I have so much less time than before. It's easy to fall into this story and telling yourself like, well, this isn't fair. Like, I don't have as much time as the people I'm competing with. I don't have as much time as other people. So I guess I just can't do that anymore. Or the strategies that other people talk about, they won't work for me. And I try to avoid that kind of mindset whenever I can. And instead I flip it around and try to ask myself, okay, out of all the universe of options out there, of all the different ways that you could write a newsletter, is there a way that I can do this so that it only takes me two hours a week? Cause that's all the time that I have. But the result for the audience is not equal to what I was doing before. It's actually better. Can I actually use this constraint and create something that's even better than what I was making previously? And I usually, maybe I'm just too optimistic, I don't know. But usually I'm like, yeah, if you think about like, it's hard to imagine all the possible options out there. You're like, yeah, there probably is something out there that is better for them and only takes me two hours rather than taking me 30. And so it took me probably like nine months of brainstorming and trying to come up with ideas before I eventually settled on the structure of 3-2-1. But the newsletter is way bigger than it was before. There are way more subscribers. Now, that's not the only measure of whether it's providing value to people. but people seem to really like it and it definitely is performing well. And, you know, it takes me 1/15 of the time. So I think that can be a powerful sort of little thought experiment to play with yourself if you're facing some constraints. And just encourage yourself to try to think a little more carefully about it. There's usually a path for figuring out a better solution, even if you have constraints.

You were mentioning this earlier. It sounds like what what people are doing, life is going to happen, things are going to stack on our plate, seasons are going to change, there's going to be adversities, it's natural. And what I'm hearing you say is that even if that doesn't happen and you just, you know, have a kid and things just need to change for you and everything's still okay, it sounds like one of the most important habits is to ask better questions. Is to ask, is this supporting me? Is there a better way? Is there a more effective way? Who could I become that I'll be more proud of? It sounds like there's, you had to ask a different question, a better question, to give you a bigger result in less time and bigger result for you and the audience.

I think questions are crucial. You know, it's kind of funny because I spent a lot of time writing about these ideas and trying to share what I learned with, you know, with habits and improvement, decision making, productivity and all that. And, I think it's easy for that stuff to kind of come across as like advice. But I'm not really trying to give people advice. I'm just trying to like lay out a toolkit and say, Hey, here are all the strategies. Here's all the tools. Let's lay them on the table. And then you can choose which one's the best fit for you. Like I don't really have much interest in telling people what to do. I'm more just trying to like share all the strategies. But the other problem with advice is that it's kind of brittle in the sense that it's very dependent on context. You know, like people, someone can give you actually very good advice. They can give you like an idea that genuinely worked for them. But if your context is different, if the timing or the situation is different, or you have different resources, different strengths, it still might not be a good fit for you. Questions, however, are the opposite. Questions, whereas advice is brittle and context dependent, questions are flexible and adaptable, and they shift. They can naturally transform based on the context. So for example, one question you could ask yourself, like somebody could give you really good advice, so to speak, on what workout program to follow. or you could just have a question and you ask yourself, what would a healthy person do? And if you keep walking around life asking yourself, what would a healthy person do? You start to notice all sorts of things based on your current situation that maybe you could do. And it's much more flexible and adaptable than just trying to follow one strict workout program, which may not work if you have a knee injury or if you don't have enough time that day or for any number of reasons.

Right.

So I do really like questions. And you're right that I had to ask myself better questions to get better answers. I had to ask myself better questions to kind of get myself in a better mindset. And there are a few questions that I really like that I keep coming back to. And I think maybe, you know, maybe anybody listening to this will find it useful as well. So the first question is, what am I optimizing for? And, you know, people optimize for different things. Sometimes we optimize for money. Sometimes we optimize for free time or family time. Sometimes you optimize for creative output or having like the ability to choose the creative projects you work on. It can be any number of things, but you need to decide what it is for you. And I think a lot of the time we sort of fall into this rut where we're just kind of optimizing for what we think we're supposed to be doing or what other people are encouraging us to do. And we're not actually optimizing or working on what we actually want to optimize for. so the other challenge with that question is it shifts over time. You know, like what I'm optimizing for today is different than what I wanted 10 years ago or five years ago. So you need to keep revisiting that question and asking yourself, what am I optimizing for? Now, the second question that I like is, can my current habits carry me to my desired future? So once you know what you're optimizing for, are you on a trajectory that can get you there, or do your habits need to change? 'Cause if you're on the wrong trajectory, if you know you want to optimize for one thing, but your habits are leading you somewhere else, obviously something needs to change. The other way to kind of frame this, if you want to like flip it around and frame it maybe from a, that's like maybe a little bit more of a positive angle. If you want to frame it from more of a negative angle, what you could ask yourself is, how am I contributing to the situation that I say I don't want? Or how am I contributing to the conditions that I say I don't want? And if you look at your current habits, you'll almost always notice that there are a few things that you're doing that are influencing the situation. Most of life is not entirely under your control, but it's also not entirely out of your control. The majority of life is kind of like a tennis match. You don't control what the other player does. You don't control their shots or their strategy. But you do influence it with your shots and your strategy. And so it's true that luck and randomness and misfortune, it's true that all that stuff is gonna happen to you and you can't control everything, every card that's dealt to you in life. But it's also true that you influence the situation. And so the only reasonable approach is to focus on the elements that are within your control and to try to influence it, to try to shape the conditions to the best way possible. And I think questions like, are my current habits carrying me to my desired future? Or how am I contributing to the conditions I say I don't want? Those questions are kind of helping shape that or helping reveal different steps that you could take. By the way, that, how am I contributing to conditions question? I think that's from Jerry Colonna, great like business coach and entrepreneur. So those are a couple that I like. the other question that I asked myself, which I mentioned previously, what season am I in right now? You know, that kind of helps encourage you to get in the right mindset and think, Hey, you know, sometimes habits can be good for you, but they just have outlived their usefulness. Like they were, they were good for a previous season. And so that doesn't mean that, you know, the habit was bad. It doesn't mean that you should feel bad about doing it. It just means that maybe it outlived its usefulness. So those are just a few of the things I like to kind of prime myself with to try to spark thoughts on what should I really be focused on right now?

Yeah, when you were playing baseball in the batting cage for an hour a day, that habit served you then. It doesn't serve you now to swing a baseball bat for an hour a day. So you just gotta know what season you're in. I'm curious, you know, you ask a question in your newsletter every week. What was the most powerful question for you of 2022?

All right, I actually have a couple that I like here. So I have a big spreadsheet where I keep all the questions and ideas and stuff from each week. And I go through them every now and then and kind of mark some of my favorites. But so these are just a few that I liked from this year. So one is, do I need to spend more time searching for better information or do I need to spend more time acting on the information that I already have? So is the bottleneck strategy or is it execution? Right. Another one that I like, this is kind of the trying to encourage me to try big things or attempt big things. is the question to ask yourself is not will I succeed? The question is what should I attempt? You know, if we get so caught up in trying to succeed, then I think maybe you can talk yourself out of trying things that are worth attempting, even if they don't ultimately pan out the way that you hope they will.

How does someone know what they should be attempting in life?

It's a great question. I mean, I, you know, I don't know the answer. I'm not, I'm not the person that, you know, that has the answer to that kind of stuff, but. I think that people often talk themselves out of things before they should. So we're almost always our own bottleneck before the world is actually the bottleneck. If you think about it, if you just try to step outside and above yourself for a second and think about the things that you've tried or the projects you've worked on, it's almost never the case that you hit a true hard stop. that like the world is just like, Hey, sorry, there's nothing else you can do. There's nobody else to contact. There's no small action to take. There's no alternate path of attack or line of questioning. There's nothing else you can do. There's almost always something else you could try if you want to give it another attempt. But we talk ourselves out of it way earlier than the world like puts a true hard stop in front of us. And so as best as possible, I try to not be my own bottleneck. I try to not be the, I try to let the world tell me no before I tell myself no. And that I don't think, I feel like sometimes if people want to push back on something like that, they'll talk about how it's like overly positive or it can get delusional or something like that. And, you know, certainly I would prefer to not be too negative or too positive. I'd prefer to strike a perfect balance, but that's not possible. And if I'm going to err in one direction, I'd rather err on being too positive rather than too negative. I'd rather err on attempting too many things rather than talking myself out of them. But even though you're trying to be positive and trying to attempt difficult things, that doesn't mean you can ignore reality. You know, like another question I like. So this is actually another one that I marked on the sheet, which is without altering the facts of the situation I'm facing and without ignoring the reality of what must be done, What's the most useful and empowering story that I can tell myself about what's happening and what I need to do next? And there's this little exercise I heard about one time. So all you need, you need to get two sheets of paper or open up two doc, two Google Docs or whatever. On the first one, you're gonna, you can pick whatever timeframe you want for this. Just for this example, let's say it's the, the last 10 years of your life, okay? But you could do the last six months or whatever. All right, so on the first sheet of paper, you're going to write down the last 10 years of your life. You're going to tell the story of the last 10 years. But the only rule of this game is that you can't tell any lies. Okay? Everything has to be true. The first version, you're going to write the least favorable version of your last 10 years. It's got to be true, but it's the least favorable framing. The second version, you're going to write the last 10 years, but it's going to be the most favorable. Now, what's interesting, I feel like you look at those two sheets of paper, there are no lies on either one of these. You know, both sheets of paper are true. And I just have a hard time seeing what telling yourself that first version, that first piece of paper, what that gets you. You know, like if you're not ignoring reality, if you're sticking with the facts of the situation and you're still gonna deal with uncomfortable conversations that need to be had or the difficult steps that need to be taken, you might as well tell yourself the most empowering and useful version of that story. That's the story that's gonna make you feel best, it's gonna get you motivated, it's gonna get you moving. So I don't think you should be delusional about it. And it doesn't mean that there aren't gonna be hard times or that you're not gonna have to have difficult conversations. Like all of that is still part of life, but you're just trying to.

Not be your own bottleneck. Yeah, it's reframing the story of your life. And when we can frame why we are doing things on a daily basis in a more empowering way as opposed to a disempowering way. It starts to feel like there's a lot more flow, fun, fulfillment, joy in life rather than a drag holding us back. So I love that.

All right, I love these questions. Let me just give you one more. So sometimes I like to do this thing with asking myself a question where both answers can be true. opposites can be true. And the question is not whether it's right or wrong. The question is, what do you need right now? So, for example, this is one that I had in an issue that went out in June. Sometimes we're too hard on ourselves, criticize our mistakes to an unhelpful degree. Other times we're too easy on ourselves and let excuses run our lives. So which way are you leaning right now? Do you need to be harder with yourself? Do you need to be firmer? and more disciplined, or do you need to be easier on yourself, more forgiving, and how can you pull yourself back to center? And, you know, yeah, sometimes like you need to be tough with yourself and disciplined, and sometimes you need to be forgiving and chill out a little bit. And the question is not whether one person is right or wrong. The question is, which one do you need right now? You know, which one serves you best? And so many things are like that. You know, it's not, the question is not, do you need to rest or do you need to train? The question is, which one do you need right now? You know, the question is not, do you need to read and research or do you need to write and produce? The question is, which one do you need right now? And so opposites can both be true. It's just a matter of timing. And I like to think about balance in general. We talk a lot about work-life balance or balance in life. And I think it's easy for it to kind of get squished into this like average mode where you're just like, well, let me just do a little bit of each. But actually you can still be really intense if the timing is right, you can, it's like turning it on and turning it off. You know, the question is, let me rest fully, or the approach is let me rest fully and let me rest fully. And let me rest fully and let me train fully. And so in a way, balance is about timing, not intensity. You know, it's not saying don't do intense things, just like, you know, take it easy and like keep yourself in this average mode. It's saying, no, do like really intense things, but just shut it off every now and then. and give yourself self space to recover and have the right timing.

Love that. Something about, you know, thinking about what people need the most right now, you know, as a season, a year, turns over for a lot of people and really a season of the last few years for a lot of people, hopefully turning over into the next season. Something that I love in one of your strategies and your approaches is focusing on getting 1% better every day or every time you do something, focus on the 1% improvement and getting better. If people are listening to this, watching this, thinking about how they can transform their lives and better their lives, what's something over the next seven days that they should be thinking about with their habits to make this happen?

Yeah, great question. I don't even think it needs to be seven days. I think it can be five minutes. You can do a lot with five good minutes. Five good minutes of exercise will reset your mood. Five good minutes of writing will make you feel totally different about your manuscript. It's like now the project's moving forward. Five good minutes of conversation will restore the relationship and get people back on track. So five good minutes can do a lot. And I think you can scale it down that small and just ask yourself, How can I live five good minutes? How can I... In a sense, each day is a small lifetime. and how can you live a good life today? That's really all you got to focus on is can I have a good day today? And then you can wake up again tomorrow and do the same thing. And this idea of getting 1% better each day, it's really encouraging a focus on trajectory rather than position. You know, there's so much discussion about position in life. We have all these different ways of measuring our current position. Like what's the number on the scale? How much money's in the bank account? What's the current stock price? We have all these different ways of analyzing what our current position is. And then usually when we get that number, whatever it is, there's kind of some sort of judgment that happens. You know, it's, oh, I'm not where I said I wanted to be yet, or we haven't achieved what we said we wanted to achieve. And what I'm encouraging is to say, listen, measurement's fine. It can be useful, but just for a minute, let's set that to the side and stop worrying so much about our current position and focus a little bit more on our current trajectory. you know, is the arrow pointed up and to the right or have we flatlined? You know, are we getting 1% better or 1% worse? Because if you're on a good trajectory, even if it's just for the next five minutes, you know, then you're on the path where all you need is time. Like time will magnify whatever you feed it. You know, if you have good habits, time becomes your ally and that trajectory will carry you forward. And if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that goes by, you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper. And so getting 1% better each day, it's really a mindset. It's an approach. It's less about measuring it, oh, is it 1% or 1.6% or whatever? It's not about getting caught up in the numbers. It's about trying to focus on putting yourself on a good path and then letting those days stack up.

Before the interview continues, if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose and not living the life that your future yourself would be extremely proud of. I've written a new book called the Greatness Mindset, and I think you're gonna love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, the Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today. Okay, let's get back to this video. In seeing the trajectory, I love that approach and that mindset. I'm curious, in your opinion, why do you think so many people have the habit of being hard on themselves even when they're improving and seeing the metrics go up on whatever they're measuring?

I mean, it can probably be many different things and I don't know all the answers. I think one thing that's common is that the results of success are widely discussed and highly visible, and the process of success is often invisible. and hidden from view. You'll never see a news story that's like, Man eats chicken and salad for lunch today. It's only a story once it's like, Man loses 100 pounds. It's only once it's a result that people talk about it. Or there's never going to be a story about James writes 500 words today. It's only a story once Atomic Habits is a bestseller. And so because the results are the thing that gets discussed so much, And it's not, by the way, it's not that results don't matter. Like I consider myself pretty results oriented. It's just that I think we tend to overvalue outcomes because it's all we ever talk about and we undervalue the process because it's just not, it's not compelling to talk about what's going on on a daily basis. So because of all that, I think it can get easy to judge yourself. You know, you could be doing the right thing on any given day. Like I could sit down and I could write 500 words. and that's actually a really good day, you know? But if the manuscript's still a mess and I'm still a year and a half away from the book coming out and I'm seeing somebody else launch a bestseller this week, then it's you start to judge yourself and feel like, oh, they have what I want to have or I'm not there yet or this is still a mess. I've been working on it for months. Like this is never going to get finished. It's very easy to fall into that kind of mindset and especially if you're focused on results. So I think the shift is partially it just helps to know that working on habits day in and day out, focusing on building a better process and building a better system is how results occur. And that is very obvious to all of us as soon as you say it, but man, it's so easy to forget it on a daily basis. And so reminding yourself that most of your results in life are a lagging measure of the habits that precede them. So, your bank account is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your physical fitness is the lagging measure of your exercise habits. Even silly stuff like the amount of clutter in your living room was a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. So many areas of life are largely, maybe not exclusively, but largely influenced by the habits that precede them. And so, if you want better outcomes, the thing to focus on is building better habits. And for some reason, we get into this mindset where we're focused on results and we naturally start to compare, and that leads to feelings of judgment, resentment, and negativity and so on. And if we can just shift it a little bit and just try to focus on having five good minutes or living a good day or building better habits, then I think maybe you pull yourself back in the present moment. You focus a little bit more on running your own race, and maybe a little bit less on what everybody else is doing.

I love that, man. Focus on your own race. You know, over 10 million copies sold of Atomic Habits. You know, if there is anyone who hasn't got this yet, you guys got to make sure you get this. But I'm curious, for those who haven't got it yet and don't know, how long does it take to form a habit? There seems like there's all this different research. This University says this and this. Scientific study says this, how long does it take to actually form a habit? And is it dependent on what habit you're trying to create? And are there also also are there different stages of building and forming a habit?

That's interesting. The stages part's interesting. People don't usually ask that. Okay, so very popular question, how long does it take to build a habit? It does depend on the habit you're building. So there are a variety of studies that show, you know, if you pick an easy habit, you know, might only take a couple weeks. If you pick something really difficult, maybe it takes six or seven or eight months, who knows? But it also depends, the same habit can take very different amounts of time depending on the context. Imagine one person who's trying to build the habit of doing yoga every day and they live with a bunch of athletes or people who go to yoga studios or whatever. And then the other person is trying to build the habit of doing yoga every day and they live with nobody who works out and they kind of get criticized or poked fun at if they do it in front of them. Well, same habit, but very different situations. And so the environment's gonna influence how much friction you're feeling associated with that. And obviously that will influence how easy or difficult it is. So I don't really know that the timing tells you anything. You know, there's all these kind of popular myths, 21 days or 30 days or whatever, and there's not really anything to back that up. But there's also a couple studies that say on average it's like 66 days or something like that. But again, the range can be quite wide. , depending on the habit. So I think the true answer, the honest answer to how long does it take to build a habit is forever. Because if it stops, if you stop doing it, it's no longer a habit, you know, like, and what I'm trying to get at with that is habits are not a finish line to be crossed, you know, they're a lifestyle to be lived. It's something to integrate into your new normal. It's not like, Hey, let me just do this for 30 days or 66 days, and then I'll be a healthy person, or then I'll be productive or whatever, you know, I won't have to think about it anymore. It's like, no, like what we're looking for is a change that you can integrate into your new normal, something you can make part of your lifestyle. And then once it's part of your daily life, great, you can start to look at the next habit and try to integrate that one. And it's a, it's kind of this endless process. And maybe that encourages you a little bit more to look for a non-threatening change or a sustainable change rather than just trying to flip a switch. Yeah.

And it also sounds like, A habit is only a habit, and correct me if I'm wrong, if it becomes and is your identity on a consistent basis. And if it's not your identity, then you're not doing it if it's not your identity.

I don't think most researchers would define it that way, but it speaks to this question you asked about stages. And that was kind of the first thing that I thought about when you mentioned that question. So let's say, for example, let's just take a classic habit, like going to the gym and working out. So early on, going to the gym is kind of uncomfortable. You know, you're worried about like, are people judging me? Do I look stupid? I don't know what exercises to do. You know, like, I don't know where to put my stuff. Do they have a water fountain at this gym or do I need to bring a water bottle? There's like all these stupid little questions that you're thinking about when you're getting started. And it's definitely not part of your identity. You haven't shown up enough to be comfortable there and feel like, Hey, this is just part of who I am. And so early on, the kind of the first stage when you're practicing it, I think the number one thing you need to do is scale it down, reduce the scope, and try to make it as easy and as frictionless as possible to show up each day. So that's probably like stage one is how do I make it? It's the opposite of what people try.

To do when they're like, I'm out of shape. I'm going to go every day for the next year and I'm not going.

To miss a day and I'm going to eat chicken and salad every day. Well, and you know what's interesting is especially for ambitious people, it's really interesting or really easy to fall into that pitfall. because when you sit down and you think about the changes you want to make, yeah, it's easy to get excited about that. I think implicitly you kind of, even though people don't say it, the thing that's kind of in the back of their mind is, what can I achieve on my best day? Like how can I get to peak performance? And instead, I almost think it's more useful to ask yourself, what can I achieve even on the worst days? Like what habit could I stick to even on the bad days? Because then if you start there, now you can start to build some momentum. You can show up consistently, you can establish the habit and you know, you can keep going. So that's maybe the first stage is scale it down. The second stage is you start to get some like other rewards associated with it. So you've been going to the gym for a few months and then maybe you start to see a little bit of a change in your body or maybe you start to develop some friendships there and you look forward to seeing your new buddy there and you guys fist bump and you chat a little bit and it's just like kind of more engaging and fun to do it. to go there and, you know, work out. And so these are, like, other benefits, things that make the habit feel good, and they kind of help you show up more and more. So you're starting to get these external benefits that are coming along the way. And then ultimately, the, maybe the final stage or a later stage is now it feels like it's kind of part of my identity. I go like, this is where I would say. So I've been working out for a while now, and it's probably, like, the habit that I care most about, like, my, in terms of personal habits, it's the one that feels like it. centers me or it's the only time I really get for myself. And so I want to work out now. Yes, of course I want the benefits of it and the, you know, the physical changes and all that stuff. But what I really want is I just feel good when I do it. You know, I feel like I'm being me, I'm being the kind of person I want to be. And it makes me feel like, yeah, this is the identity I want to have, this kind of person I want to be. And so I can get that satisfaction. instantly, like as soon as long as I'm doing one rep, I get that feeling. And so that's a reward that comes maybe later. You got to show up a lot before you get to that place mentally, but I think ultimately that's where you're trying to get to. Now there is maybe one more stage after that, which is the tighter that you cling to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. and so this is kind of an endless process, you know, like you, we all can sort of think about, like, let's say you have a surgeon who they've been doing an operation a certain way for the last 20 years, and they have a bunch of successful patients and cases from that operation. And they just are like, yeah, you know what? I know it works well this way. And then a new technology.

Yeah.

Yeah. A new technology comes along and they're like, you know, hey, you can do this with robots now, or you can do it laparoscopically or whatever. And they resist it because they're like, no, I have a lot of evidence for doing my old way. They cling to that current identity and it's harder to grow. And five years from now, they find themselves behind the curve. Or you've got a teacher who they've been doing their lesson plan the same way for the last 10 years and they don't want to integrate YouTube or some new learning modality or whatever. And five years from now, they find themselves behind the curve. And so the tighter you cling to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. And it's kind of this endless cycle in the in the early stages, what you want is to foster the identity, to like reinforce being that kind of person, because it helps you show up. But then eventually a couple of years from now, the world changes and you need to adapt. And so it's kind of like evolve or die. And you need to continually be retouching or optimizing or refining that identity in your approach. And so that's, those are, there are some various stages there, but those are kind of some of the big ones. that I, that stuck out to me. Yeah.

And it's like people who are stuck to whatever fax machines, and then it's, you know, then from faxing to email and then email to, you know, cell phones and whatever it is, it's like our grandparents don't keep up with the technology, and then we can't call them on FaceTime because they don't know how to turn it on or whatever. So that's interesting. There, it sounds like there's different stages to these habits, and it sounds like when you become successful, the habits that got you here may not necessarily get you to the next stage or season of accomplishment, fulfillment, success, health. Is that right? Yeah.

It's interesting because I would say there's kind of like two categories. There are habits that are like timeless that you, the, we call those the fundamentals of whatever your domain is. You know, like in my case, reading and writing are probably always going to be habits that will serve me as an author, you know? But then there's other stuff, you know, the way that I executed the book launch for Atomic Habits. you know what? If I launch another book in 10 years, a lot of those strategies will probably be outdated. And so you need to upgrade and improve, you need to evolve and change. And so there's both the fundamentals that you always need to stick to, and there's just this continual growth and learning process that you also have to be committed to.

What's the habit you think you're going to need to innovate over the next one to two years in this season of life that supported you to getting here, but won't support you to the next level.

Yep. My biggest fear is that I know how to write a good book, but the way that I know how to do it doesn't work for me anymore. So I had a period the last like six to nine months of writing Atomic Habits where it was just all that I was doing. It was like I would wake up, I'd write for 12 hours a day or edit for 12 hours a day. I'd go to sleep, I'd dream about it, I'd wake up again and do it all over. And that was just like, it was this kind of, I don't know, to call it a dark period is probably too extreme, but it, you know, it was just like this very intensely focused period. And I can't do that anymore because I have kids, I got a family and like it just it doesn't work. So I know that if I can force myself to go through that, which by the way, like that was a difficult thing. My little mantra for that period of life was Elaine D. B. Ton has this quote where he says, of many books, the reader thinks this could have been truly great if only the author was willing to suffer a little bit more. And I just kept telling myself, it's.

Kind of true, though.

Yeah. So I just. That was, like, my little Mantra was like, this can be great, but you just have to be willing to suffer a little bit more. And so I just told myself that, like, every day. And, you know, I just.

It can be true, and it cannot. It's also not true. You know, it just kind of depends on how you create. You know, for sure.

I, I just can't, I can't do it that way anymore. So I have to go back to that little thought experiment that I mentioned earlier where I've got this new constraint. And so now I have to ask myself, okay, if I can only write for one hour a day, how could I write a book that's even better than atomic, than atomic habits? How can I write something even better.

Than atomic habits if I can only.

Write for one hour a day? Now you got a good question. I don't know. I don't know the answer yet, but that's my little, that's the, that's the.

Thing I'm noodling on for right now. That's the better question that that hopefully will... That is a great question. I mean, again, it goes back into maybe you didn't think it was possible with your newsletter because you had to do whatever 10-15 hours a week on it, and now you're doing two, and it's impacting people, you know, in a potentially greater way with the results it's getting. So, it's, I think there's a world in which you could write two hours a week and write a better book.

There's got, it's got to be possible, you know, I mean, the obvious answer is like, well, it'll just take longer, you know, like, but, but I also don't want to- But if you had.

To do it in the same time, if you had to do it in one year, I bet there's a way.

So there's, that's where the question gets really interesting. There we go. Another constraint. You say, okay, you can only write for one hour a day, and you only get two years.

Can you write something that's better than Atomic Habits? I think you would. I think you would because, because again, you've got 10, 15 years of experience writing now. you know what works, you can do it faster, you can pull into your archives of memory better, you have all the documentation from the previous, you know, you've got this skill now that it should flow more effortlessly if you allow it to. But we'll see.

I appreciate your enthusiasm and encouragement about it because I'll need it. But I don't know, we'll see. That's my little task is to see if I can find an answer.

I'm curious. It's another personal question for you. when I, when I interviewed Liz Gilbert about, you know, she did eat, pray, love, which I think did 10 or, I don't know, 20 million copies, whatever it's done. It's done over 10 million copies. Right. And I remember her talking about, you know, is my best selling work behind me? Yeah. And kind of that. Is it, you know, the fear or the worry or the, just the, the thought about it? I'm curious for you. After writing the best-selling book of the year and potentially the decade, I guess, what is the biggest fear that you have moving forward? Is it the fear of greater success? Is it the fear of potentially not it being as successful what you do in the future? Or just the fear of judgment in the opinions of other people? no matter what you do.

Yeah. I remember hearing that Adele said something similar like that after she wrote and released someone like you, that she was like, it's because I don't remember how old she was, but she was in her 20s. And, you know, she was like, I'll never write a song better than that. And that's kind of a strange feeling to feel like the peak of your career is already behind you. I am trying to not think about it like that. you know, I've had some friends who have written bestselling books as well and have gone through stuff like this. And, you know, I've heard about the Adel example or the Liz Gilbert example. You know what? Like, I'm just trying to look at it as it was a project, and it can just be a thing that went really well. You know, like, it doesn't have to be more than that. It's just, I tried really hard. I wanted to provide a great amount of value, and it seems that people like it, and that's Like, it doesn't have to become some all consuming thing that defines every bit of my existence. You know, it's just like, it's a project that went well. And now I'm going to move on to the next project and I'm going to try to do that one well. And, I think that's, that's fine. It can just be that. It doesn't, it doesn't need to be more.

How do you, how do you keep yourself there mentally and emotionally so that it doesn't, you don't feel like you have to deliver something as good or.

Better than the last work? so is it the Ohio Roots?

Is it the, you know, this. Your dad now, like, what is the. How do you keep yourself emotionally stable in that way?

Yeah, I I, you know, I don't know the perfect answer, but I'll just say a couple things that are coming to mind. I, you know, so I think some of it's personality, you know, like, I'm not really the type of person that worries about very much. I've just never really been like that. So, I don't know, this just kind of seems how I'm wired. I'm more focused on like, what is the next thing rather than like worrying about what could happen. So, having a project that excites me or that I can get invested in, I think it helps a little bit that I'm not ruminating on the last thing and whether it's being judged appropriately or not. One interesting little side effect, and I just want to say before I preface this, this is the best possible outcome. Right. Like the best possible thing is that Atomic Habits did well. So like it comes with trade offs, it comes with, you know, downsides or problems that maybe you didn't think about solving beforehand. But this is what I was working for, you know, like this is so this is partially- Can I run a.

Book that gets 100,000 copies sold and then it does 10 million globally? You were like, okay, it exceeded every expectation and then- A thousand times.

So, you know, it's- Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to complain about the result that you wanted, even if it comes with trade-offs and other problems that you need to deal with. I remember Charlie Munger said something like that too, where he was talking about people, once they get into their 90s, a lot of the time that all they talk about is how all their friends have passed away and how much their body aches and the next illness and all that kind of stuff. And he was like, wasn't the best possible outcome is that you live this long? So it doesn't make sense to complain about it. So that doesn't mean that there aren't problems. And one of the interesting like little problems or unexpected things that unexpected for me is before early in my career, I was trying to get as much feedback as possible. Like I would respond to every email that a reader sent. I would, you know, every message on Twitter I would look at or respond to. I was trying to get feedback so that I could learn. so that I can figure out what do people like? What are they not like? How can I get better? How can I improve? And now the feedback is too much. So it doesn't, it like, it's crippling to try to, first of all, it's not possible to respond to it all. But even if it was, or you tried to make that commitment, I don't think it's helpful at this point. You're just kind of getting noise, you know? I mean, it's at the point now where I can be pretty confident that Atomic Habits is a good book. I'm not going to say it's the greatest book ever or anything like that. I'm sure that I could have done it better or there are areas that can be improved. But I can be pretty confident at this point that it's good because, you know, 10 million people have bought it. And if you look at the hundreds of thousands of reviews, almost all of them are four or five stars. But there's still going to be some sliver of people who they read at the wrong time, or it wasn't in what they were expecting, or for whatever reason, they just don't speak to them. Yeah. And that's fine, you know, but like there's enough of them now because it has reached so many people. that if I just focused on that little segment, I could spend all day just looking at, listening to people who don't like it, and that would make it seem like it was this big problem when in fact, it's not a problem at all. Like 98% of people love it. And so there's no issue, there's nothing that needs to be solved. And so just the amount of feedback has scaled to such a degree that weirdly, you have to start insulating yourself from feedback, 'cause otherwise you spend too much time responding to noise. and that's a, that's been a hard thing to figure out a good balance for because I, I want to continue to learn. I don't want to, like, wall myself off and, and not, I don't want to become ignorant or unaware of how my work is Landing or what I'm saying or how, what would be most useful to people. And yet at the same time, there's just way too much feedback to pay attention to it all. So that's been, that's been an interesting challenge. I'm not sure how I'll deal with that. going forward.

What was the habit in the last decade leading up to atomic habits of thinking and feeling that was most consistent for you? The most habit thought, the most consistent thought habit and the most consistent feeling habit that you had created developed over the decade leading up to it.

For the most consistent , and I, I think this is just kind of my core approach to entrepreneurship. The most consistent thought was, I'll be, I'll figure it out, you know? And so like, you're always facing another thing as an entrepreneur. You don't know what, there's not really any playbook, you know, there, there are sort of playbooks. There's things other people did to grow their business or there's strategies to use or whatever, but everybody's running their own race and everybody's in a slightly different situation, has slightly different strengths and weaknesses, slightly different resources. and opportunities. And so you got to figure that out for yourself. How do I best put all these pieces together? And you need to have that mindset if you're going to be like, if you don't have the mindset of, I can figure it out, well, then you're for sure not going to do it. Just having the mindset does not guarantee it happening, but you need to at least be in that frame of mind. So that was the most common thing that I told myself is whatever the next thing was on the horizon, like, I'll figure it out. I'll figure out a way to make it work, or I'll figure out a way to , you know, utilize my strengths to try to, you know, develop a new line of attack for this or whatever, but I'll, I'll figure out some solution. Um, the most common feeling, probably the feeling of like waiting or the feeling of delaying gratification, that, that was probably the most common thing was like, you just keep showing up and keep doing stuff, but it's not there yet. You know, you, I, especially in my case, because I focus so much on building the audience first and not on monetizing, and so I didn't really make much money for the first, like, three to five years of this business. And so do something for five years and try to put your heart and soul into it every day, and then, like, don't really have the payoff. It's just a lot of waiting. And so, you know, that I was fine with it. Like it, you know, I had the personality that could work, and I would make money on the side doing freelance gigs, or I would, you know, occasionally have some kind of, like, I do like a seminar or a webinar or something that I would sell tickets to and, you know, I'd present something to the audience. But for the most part, I was just trying to provide as much value for free. And so it was a lot of waiting. And that was probably one of the most common things that I felt.

The feeling of delayed gratification, I think if more people learned that skill, that habit, and developed it and nurtured it, they would be so much more fulfilled, happy, and there'd be so much bigger payoff for them. than the instant gratification or the shortcuts and things like that.

The key part that made that work for me, the reason I could do it is because I was still making progress. So you like, I was delaying gratification, but I could still see that things were on a good path. So the newsletter was growing quickly. I was getting good feedback from the audience. Yeah, I wasn't. Traffic was growing. I wasn't feeling like I'm putting work out into a vacuum and there's no response. so because I could see this snowball was building and rolling down the hill, it was easier to tell myself, Hey, you're on a good path. Just keep going. You can keep waiting.

And when you saw, I know you're very connected to a lot of the other kind of writers in our space and you guys connect and do masterminds and stuff like that, people that I've known as well for a long time, when you would see other people in your industry or friend group or peer group, writing New York Times bestselling books over and over again and launching this thing and this project and you're just turning away doing the same thing consistently for five, seven years before you launched your book. How do you not get discouraged from your peers doing the things that maybe you want to do in the future but you haven't done yet?

Yeah, well, it's a good question. I think it's very natural to slide into that feelings of comparison and stuff. But I tried to avoid that. Like, I want these people to succeed, you know, I imagine so like there are two scenarios. There's going to be best selling books either way. Okay. So they're still going to happen every week.

Every week. They're going to have a best selling book.

So the question is, do you know the people who are writing best sellers or do you not? And I would much rather be friends with all the people doing it than to not be. And I was just looking to learn, you know, I'm just trying to soak up like they're these are really smart people and they, you know, they've done the thing that I'm hoping to do. so what can I learn from them and how can I provide value to them or help them out or, you know, at least be an ear that can listen to the things that they're struggling with? And so, yeah, I was looking to try to, like, build relationships with those people, not to turn it into, like, a competition, but more turn into, like, a collaboration and try to be on the same team.

Yeah, I think that's so wise. And I, I think there's a lot of people that hoard their information that compete with their peers. And I just think that's a losing battle when you try to compete and be the best and win. That was kind of my 20s where I was like, how do I be number one and be the best at everything? And then I realized, man, this is exhausting and draining. And. And then when I launched my show 10 years ago, I was like, how can I make it about everyone else? How can I shine a light on everyone? Not make it the Lewis How show, but make it the School to greatness and shine the light on others like yourself, James, and lift them up and collaborate instead of compete. And it's so much more rewarding to be in collaboration with people to see them shine to support their success and be in partnership with people, you know, and working together in your own way. But then saying, how do I learn everything for myself and just, you know, keep it all for me?

For sure, I think. like I mentioned, the comparison part is natural. And it kind of also, it's something that you wouldn't want to shut it off totally. Like, let's say, for example, that you want to launch a YouTube channel. How do you know what a good YouTube video is? The only way that you know is you look at a bunch of YouTube videos and you start to compare them. You start to compare and contrast and see which may, what makes, what qualities make one great and what qualities make other others not so great. And so it's the ability to compare things that leads to what we would call taste, you know, or the, the ability to make judgments. And so you need that, that muscle, that comparison muscle for that. I think the problem is when it gets applied in unuseful ways. So I tend to think that it's really helpful to compare small things or granular things. So, like, and very unhelpful to compare big things. so it's helpful to compare small things like what's the marketing strategy for this particular book launch or what kind of squat form or technique is that person using in the gym? And you can look at this little small detail, deconstruct it, and you can learn something from it. Meanwhile, it's pretty unhelpful generally to compare big things. What's that person's net worth compared to mine? How happy is their marriage compared to mine? These are like really big issues and there's so many factors at play and it's really complicated. and it's just kind of a losing battle to compare anything like that. It's not, it's not really helpful for anybody. But if you can scale it down, deconstruct the small stuff, then yeah, there's often a lot that you can learn. So I think comparison is fine if you keep it in the right lane. And in for big picture stuff, it's better to collaborate and maybe for small things, it's better to deconstruct and compare and try to analyze and, and then you can figure out how to Right.

I'm curious on speaking of scales, before the book launched for you, on the scale of one to 10, let's call it the joy happiness scale, 10 being your peak happiness, peak joy, you know, consistently, maybe some minor moments here and there, but most of the time, you're a joyful, happy person is a 10. One is you're miserable. On a scale of one to 10, before the book comes out, call it a few months before, where are you on that scale?

So, whenever I get a scale like this, I basically never choose one or ten because I feel like there's 7 billion people in the world and so there's got to be some other example out there that's higher than what I'm imagining or lower than what I'm imagining. So, I pretty much never select those. But having said that, well, a couple of months before the book came out, I was really quite happy because I was done with the book finally, you know, and I've been working on it. If you went like maybe say a year and a half or two years before the book came out. That was a really tough period because I was in the middle of working on it. But I generally consider myself to be a very happy, positive person. And so even years before, even before I got the book deal, you know, like, and I wasn't making much money, but I had this audience that was growing. I was quite happy then, you know, like, I was even before, you know, before I had a career and I was just a regular college student. I was quite happy then, you know, and so I try, I think this is actually a very important version of mental toughness, which is mental toughness often gets framed as grit, stubbornness, discipline in the face of challenge. I'm going to force my way through it. But I think there's another version of mental toughness, which is flexibility, adaptability, things like I can be happy no matter what I'm working on. I can be happy no matter who I'm hanging out with. I can make this work no matter what resources I have available. And mindsets like that are actually very robust and resilient. They're very mentally tough because your mindset, your mood is not dependent on your conditions. If your mood is dependent on your conditions, you're kind of like brittle. You're stuck, you're beholden to the situation. and you're being held hostage by it. And so I don't want my happiness to be held hostage by the situation. Like, I'm going to be happy no matter what I'm working on. I'm going to be happy no matter who I'm hanging out with. And I try to approach life like that, even though, of course, there will be moments of grieving and sadness and difficulty. Everybody's life is going to have that. But I don't want to be. I don't want to be held hostage by my circumstances, so.

Yeah.

So I would say there were periods two years before the book came out, that period was harder. But I still tried to be happy, even though I was feeling pretty drained.

What does that look like when it's hard for you in the darkness of writing 20 hours a day? Is that a seven? Is that a two? Is that a four? What is that on the scale?

Let's say my baseline is I'm usually at a seven or an eight. And then if I have a really great day, I'm living at a nine. and then on the hard day like that, I'm like at a four and I'm just feeling like exhausted. Mostly, the one feeling that I don't like is feeling so busy that I can't be thoughtful. So I'm so busy working on stuff, I'm so exhausted by the amount of effort that I had to put in. I can remember this a lot from this period. I would have been working so hard in the book all day and then it'd be like six o'clock and I'd be like, I just need to stop for a minute and go to the gym and work out. Yeah. And I would go and work out, but I was kind of like a zombie going through my workout. I was just, I was so tired that I was just getting through it. And I'd see people and I just, I was so busy. I was so tired that I couldn't be thoughtful and have a good conversation. I just didn't have the energy for it. But you, on a typical day, I'd be excited to walk in the gym. You know, I'd have like a bounce in my step and I go in there and I'd have a great workout and I get to chat with people and kind of cut it up a little bit and then leave. And I just didn't have the energy for that. at that time. So I think that's what being maybe a four looks like compared to being a seven or an eight.

And where are you today? 10 million copies sold to young kids, you know?

Yeah.

Dream.

As long as you're getting sleep, I feel good. The kids sleep dictates a lot of things. I would say that I'm like pretty consistently at eight right now. The thing that's keeping me from being that a nine is wrestling with this new season that I'm in and I've got all this time that I'm spending with the kids, which is great, and I don't regret it at all. But I also have this ambition, this drive to create something great, to continue to build a business, to try to make my little mark on stuff, and I don't have the time for it. So I got to figure out some answers to those questions that we were asking earlier.

I'm curious, in your opinion, what are three to five non-negotiable habits that every human being should and if they could do on a daily basis, it would improve their lives and everyone's life around them. What are those non-negotiable habits on a daily basis we should do?

Yeah, three habits that would improve everybody's lives on a daily basis. It's so hard to give an answer like that because obviously everybody's, you know, dealing with different stuff. But there are a few things I think I do genuinely think most people benefit from. so the easy answer would be the easy way to frame this would be reading, but I don't think it actually has to be reading books. I think it just is the, the habit of learning something new. So if you, you know, listening to podcasts, reading a book, watching a good YouTube video, whatever, it doesn't matter what version of that it is. But if you go to bed a little bit smarter than you were when you woke up, that's going to improve your life. And just having this thirst for lifelong learning, having an eagerness to learn or discover something new each day, it's going to pay off in a huge way in the long run, no matter what topics you're interested in. So a habit of some small habit of daily learning, let's just call it learn something new for 10 minutes each day. Some sort of physical activity. You know, this is, I think, an important realization about all habits, which is in most areas of life, there might not be a thousand ways to do something. but there's almost always more than one way. And, you know, I like working out in the gym, but not everybody wants to train like a bodybuilder, and that's fine. You know, like, you can kayak or go running or rock climbing or ride a bike or whatever. There's like a bazillion ways to live an active lifestyle, and you should choose the version of your habits that is most exciting to you. Like, in a, in a way, that's the first biggest hurdle to clear when you're building habits is. have you selected a habit that you're genuinely interested in, that you're actually engaged with? Because if it's something that you actually care about, there are going to be like endless opportunities for improvement. If you're not actually care, if you don't actually care about it, if you're just doing it because you kind of feel like society is encouraging you to do it, or your parents want you to do it, or your peers are kind of subtly saying, Hey, this is something you should do, then even the obvious improvements are going to feel like a for, you know? So let's call it 10 minutes of learning something new, some sort of physical activity, whatever is exciting or interesting to you. And then I think the other one is a process, a habit of reflection and review.

So.

It'S very easy in life to be so busy or working on stuff heads down or just have the next task come up, whether it's things you got to do for your kids or responsibilities at work. that you never take even five minutes to step back and just breathe and ask yourself, am I working on the right thing? Am I directing my attention and energy to the highest and best use? And boy, there is nothing so wasteful as working hard on the wrong thing. So many people work really hard, but are you directing your energy and attention to the best spot? And so the only way to discover that, I know I'm not smart enough, to figure it out on the first time. Like, I can't just sit down, give me five minutes and be like, oh, this is exactly what I should be focused on. It takes iteration. It takes refinement. It takes a process of reflecting and reviewing and looking back on the previous day and be like, Hey, was that a good way to spend my time? Like, did I live a good life today? And the more that you do that, the more you start to course correct. And the other tricky thing, and the reason this needs to be a habit that you revisit consistently, I don't necessarily think it needs to be daily, but consistently is the answer changes over time. You know, like what you want shifts over time, the situation you're in or the resources you have or the time you have shifts over time. And so you need to keep coming back to this. Maybe it's every week, maybe it's once a year, but whatever it is, you need a chance to reflect and review and to try to ask yourself, is there a better way to do this? Am I working on the right thing? Am I working on what actually matters? Am I directing my attention and energy in the highest and best way?

Yeah. And how important is accountability then in your mind when we are taking on these new habits for ourselves? Is it important to have self-accountability buddy accountability, coach accountability, you know, social accountability? Do those support habits forming these consistent habits and what other factors are in play there?

They definitely support them or, or hinder them potentially, depending on the, the people you're around and the, you know, the group that you're part of. Ultimately, the form of accountability that matters the most is self-accountability it's almost impossible to exceed the standards that you have for yourself. Like that almost always sets the baseline. You know, if your, your beliefs or your standards are almost always going to be the limit on what you allow yourself to do or what you accept. Now, it's easier to stick to high standards in a supportive environment than it is in an unsupportive one. So there are a lot of things that can influence whether you want to maintain that standard, but ultimately the standard you hold yourself to is going to be the most important thing. Now, having said that, I do think that the social environment, the tribes that you belong to, influence your habits in a really dramatic way. so if I had to pick one topic that I think is even more important now than I realized when I was writing the book, I would probably say the social environment. You know, we're all part of multiple tribes. Some of those tribes are, like, really large, like what it means to be American or what it means to be Australian. Some of those tribes are small, like what it means to be a neighbor on your street or a member of the local CrossFit gym. But all of those tribes, large and small, they have a set of expectations. You know, they have a set of social norms. They have a set of beliefs that, hey, this is how you act in this group. This is what's normal and expected. And the more that your habits align with the expectations of the group, the easier it is to stick with them, the more, like, appealing and attractive they are, because they signal to the people around you, hey, look, I belong to, you know, like, I'm part of this. And the more that they go against the grain of the tribes that you belong to, the harder they are to to because you start to get criticized for them. And if people have to choose between, you know what? I have habits that I don't really love, but I fit in, I belong, I'm part of something, or I have the habits that I want to have, but I'm cast out, I'm ostracized, I'm criticized. I mean, the desire to belong will often overpower the desire to improve. You know, belonging will, will, the loneliness will lose to belonging. So you need to get those two things aligned and join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.

It is so true and it doesn't mean you can't make it happen. There's a great example that came up this week. Someone on my team on our team call said, I asked everyone on the call, I said, what is one thing you want to let go of next year for your life? What's one thing that's not serving you right now that you want to let go of? And this person said, I want to let go of drinking. drinking alcohol, like, or at least drinking as frequently as I do with the social circles that I'm in. And I thought that was interesting because I've never been drunk in my life. I don't drink. It's not. It's not a part of my identity, right? I never did it from sports. And then in after sports, I was just like, why? It didn't make sense to me. Nothing good or bad about it just wasn't fitting my values personally. I have other problems, which is sugar, right? It's like, I've got that. That's my advice, right?

So.

No, no judgment here. But I was just like, this never stopped for me, you know, in every, until maybe the last four or five years, where anytime I'd go out in college, after college, then in the business world, restaurants, networking events, like all that stuff, people would always try to influence me to drinking. And so I had to be, I had to be so firm in my beliefs and really just not even care at all about it. That I just knew that people were going to try to influence me. They were trying to say a joke. They'd be, I can't believe you never drank all these different things. Try to get me to drink for the first time. All this stuff. I knew it happened every single week. And I just realized, okay, this is going to happen no matter what type of circles I'm in, unless I find people that do not drink, which is very rare. And which is one of the reasons why with my girlfriend, when we started dating, I was like, listen, It's not going to work. If you like to drink, I don't think I can date you. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. I just don't want to be in that environment for the rest of my life with the person I'm choosing to be with. And so I had to make a conscious decision. And she was like, well, I don't really need it. Maybe I'll drink a glass of wine once a month. I'm like, okay, that's fine. But if this is a weekly thing, it's just not going to work because I've chosen this to be a high priority of my value. for my life. And it's very challenging if there's something you want to do and the people around you are influencing you the other way in terms of accountability. So I think it doesn't mean you can't do it, but choosing to be around people or groups or tribes like you mentioned that are supportive, even if it's the local CrossFit gym or whatever it might be, find those communities as much as possible. You know, if your family isn't as supportive, find these other micro tribes to support you in that habit forming. So I think it's really powerful.

It's so much easier to stick to a habit if you're in an environment that supports it. And there's this whole chapter in Atomic Habits, it's called the Secret to Self-Control. And one of the surprising things that I came across when I was researching the book is a lot of these self-control studies, we typically will like kind of the standard story we all tell is, oh man, I wish I had the discipline of that person, or I wish I was, you know, as consistent as this professional athlete or whatever. But in fact, the people who exhibit the highest self-control are often the people who are tempted the least. That's like the predominant pattern that is common across those different contexts, is that.

They are- Pull cookies in your house, you're not gonna eat them. Yeah.

And so, you know, you want to stack the deck in your favor and design an environment or join groups and tribes where your desired behavior is normal, where your desired behavior is easy. and if you do that for yourself, sure, you'll still have to put effort in, but it's going to be so much more productive and easy to stick to the habit because you're in a space and a context that's designed to support it. And that's maybe one of the biggest hacks or strategies for building better habits is worry a little bit less about having superhuman willpower and worry a little bit more about designing an environment where you don't need willpower at all.

You did something really smart, which I think a lot of people aren't willing to do. You spent 10 years writing every week in an incredible article or articles that were so detailed, so thought out, so researched, and you said, how can I serve the maximum number of people in my niche and then start branching out in the space as well and do it consistently over a decade? without really making a lot of money, you know, selling other things. And then you came out with a book. And now this doesn't happen for everyone, but then you came out with a book and it became, you know, a, one of the best selling books of the year of the most selling book of last year on Amazon, like you said, top five, I think this year as well. And it just continues to add value to people. And I think it's a testament to what you created for a decade plus of adding value. So congratulations. on everything, man.

Yeah, thank you. That's very, very nice of you to say. It's been a wild ride. There are a couple of things going on there. I do try to operate with this core value of always give value before you ask for value. And if you think about in any business, but like in my business writing books, the amount of what it costs a reader or what it costs a customer is not just how much they have to pay for the book. It's also how much time they have to spend reading it or finding it and so on. And whatever that total cost is, time plus money, that's the amount they have to pay. And then whatever I get paid is what I make. But what they get in return should be well in excess of that. So the value they get minus the time and money they spend, there's some surplus there. And we could call it whatever, but I think about it as goodwill. And I always want to have a surplus of goodwill. Um, and so everything that I create, whether it's an article or newsletter or the book, I want people to be, to have this feeling that it's like, oh my gosh, I get so much out of this. Of course I would want to open the next email or of course I would want to buy the book. It's like such an obvious win for me. So I always try to give value before I ask for value. And I don't think that there's any one way to do this. Like you could start with the book and not have an audience, for example. But the way that I did it is I wanted to focus on building the audience first, building the platform first, give as much value as possible, get the audience as large as possible. And then I was able, you know, I didn't have any credentials, right? Like I don't have any background for, and there was no reason for me to get a book deal. I was just a guy with a blog. Um, and the only reason that any of the publishers in New York met with me is because I spent that time building the email list and developing the audience. And then that got my foot in the door and got the book deal. And then of course you have to execute well on that and create something valuable. And then, you know, ultimately the book being a hit was sort of just all this potential energy that had been built up for two years or five years or whatever, and then it being released when the book came out. So I, in a large, to a large degree, I kind of think that's the hardest thing about writing books is all the work is upfront. you know, you have to build the audience and write it and edit it and make the marketing plan and start to record interviews and execute on that. You have to do all of that stuff before you sell a single copy. And most people are just not willing to delay gratification that long, you know, I mean, it's probably, depending on how you measure it, Atomic Habits took somewhere between like three and six years. Definitely at least three years because that's how long it was from when I got the book deal. but I was doing a lot before I even got the book deal. So, you know, it's just a long time to work on something without making a cent from it. And so if you're willing to do that, then you can get a great result.

And what some, here's the challenge, though. Sometimes people are willing to do that and they don't get the result that they're looking for. You know, they go all in, they take two years or four years working on the book, and it's not maybe a flop, but it doesn't get to the expectation they might have of like, oh, it's going to sell 10,000 or 20,000 copies or 100,000 copies. And they realize actually how hard it can be to sell books. And that can be discouraging for people too, and say, well, okay, this didn't work. I'm not going to do it again. But I think that's not the way to look at it. It's like, when you think, you know, whenever I do any project, and I remember I started this with my podcast 10 years ago, it'll be 10 years in January. I said, if this impacts one person in a positive way, it's worth for me at the time, right? And I think about that with my books and my work where it's like, if this can, yes, I have goals and yes, I want to do certain things, but if it can impact a few people and really support them and getting out of a lot of pain or overcoming some challenge that's been a hurdle for a long time, then it'll be worth it for me. Yes, I want to make money. Yes, I want to make return on my investment, all those things. I think when we get caught up in that focus, we lose sight of the true purpose of it, the mission of why we're creating something.

Well, the two things are connected. Part of it, like I was just saying, if you do a good job of delivering value to people, solving their problems or helping them in some kind of genuine way, then it tends to be the case that those sorts of products sell better and spread wider. I mean, Atomic Habits is sold over 10 million copies. my audience, you know, my email list now is 2 million people, but like where are those other 8 million coming from? And not, you know, I'm not even saying that everybody in my audience bought it, right? So it has far outpaced my ability to promote it. And the only way that that happens is if the product is good enough that other people feel like, oh, I have to tell somebody about this. You know, it's like it's been so useful for me that I have to share it. And so ultimately it always comes back to creating the best possible product. And I like Seth Godin's little measure for this, which is if you want word of mouth, then you need to create something remarkable. And that means that it's worthy of remark, that it's worth talking about. And so ultimately it comes back to word of mouth. And the only way to really get that is to actually deliver on your promise to actually create something super valuable. Now, that said, There are tons of people out there who pour their heart and soul into a product or to try to their best to deliver value and maybe still don't see the outcome that they want. And so you do need that. Like that's kind of the first hurdle to clear. But there's a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes with a product like Atomic Habits. There's obviously my ability to promote it in my audience, but again, that's not enough on its own. I think a couple things that are really like working in my favor. So the first is the frame of the book or just the topic that you choose. The example I like to give is there's a chapter later in Atomic Habits where I talk about deliberate practice. Now, it could have been a book about deliberate practice where I talk about habits, but instead it's a book about habits where I talk about deliberate practice. And the difference in how those two books would sell is enormous because I don't need to convince anybody that habits are important. Like you just kind of get from growing up in society that having good habits is favorable and having bad habits is unfavorable. And so it taps into a desire that people already have. And what I have to do is to say, hey, this is the best possible solution for that problem. This is like the, if you want the most comprehensive guide on the topic, if you want to see the tools and strategies laid out in an easy to understand way. And if you want these strategies to be easy to apply, this is the book that'll help you do it. But I'm not trying to convince people that it's worthwhile at all. And I actually think even though most authors don't think about it that way, a lot of the time they are kind of fighting an uphill battle. They're trying to convince people to care about a topic or a framing or a positioning that they're just not naturally interested in. So I think that's just one of many things that you can look for is like, yes, you need to try to provide excess value, but you also need to position the product in a way that you're swimming with the current rather than against it. It's so much easier to promote something if the wind is at your back.

You could write the best book, but if the framing is not in alignment with what people really want and need, it's going to be a hard sell consistently. You might get your your core audience to buy into it, but then it's going to be hard to spread if it doesn't have that effect. My friend Rory Vaden says this as an example for himself all the time. He did a TED Talk that did, I don't know, like five or 10 million views about multiplying your time. And then he wrote a book essentially around the TED Talk that's called Procrastinate on Purpose. And he's like, if I would have changed the title to multiply your, like how to multiply your time or whatever something on multiplying time.

Yep.

He's like, it probably would have sold a lot more, but it was the same content, but a different framing and a different cover and a title that people are like, why do I need to procrastinate on purpose? It doesn't make sense to me, but I want to multiply my time. And so it could have been more advantageous.

I mean, I think this is a little insight about it applies to any product, any type of entrepreneur, not just books, but certainly it applies to books, which is People don't buy the actual book. They can't because they haven't read it yet. They haven't read any of the pages inside. They buy the Amazon listing, they buy the COVID they buy the promise of what is inside the book, but they don't buy the actual book. Now, you still need to deliver in the actual book because of what we just mentioned a minute ago. People recommend it because of what's in the actual book. Word of mouth is driven because of what's in the actual book. But the initial sale is only made because of how it's positioned and what they see on the COVID So you need both. You can't just have one or the other. And sometimes you'll hear authors kind of complain about this, you know, like, oh, you know, I'm a great writer, but people just don't see it. Or I put so much effort into this book and it's not selling. And my view is like, you know, I get it, you know, you spend a lot of time and energy on it. Like, I'm not trying to dismiss that, but it's kind of like complaining about like trying to make cookies, but not including all the ingredients. You know, it's like, oh, well mine didn't show. Well, it doesn't matter that you had like really great eggs, you know, like you need the other ingredients too. And so it's all of those things that make the recipe work. It's not just one and making a book or making a successful product is like a thousand ingredients that all need to be put in together.

And how do we, you know, we mentioned this, I don't know if it was before we started or in the beginning about how to make high leverage choices so that our time is maximized for greater outcomes in the future. How do we learn to develop, I guess, that skill or figuring out what we should be doing with our time to make the highest impact for the future? Because it seems like a lot of society is just scrolling and distracted and doing actions that don't support their future self. So how do we figure that out?

I like the way that you framed it there at the end, doing actions that don't support their future selves. I think it's, I think it comes back to asking yourself the right questions again. And some of the questions that I like to ask to try to get to these high leverage choices. So the question I like the most is what is the work that keeps working for me once it's done? so when, when Atomic Habits came out, I wanted to do everything I could to try to propel the book to be a success, you know, try to get the word out. So I did all kinds of interviews, and some of the interviews that I did were on radio, and I don't really do radio interviews anymore because when I put the time in and, like, you know, spend 10 minutes on a segment or whatever it is, as soon as we go off air, the work that I just put in evaporates. Nobody's listening anymore. It's gone. Whereas when I do a podcast interview, it gets recorded. And even right now, as we're talking, there's other podcast interviews that I've done that people are listening to right now as we're sitting here. And so in a sense, there's almost like multiple versions of James out there, you know, that are like still working for me. The past James is still those hours that he put in are still delivering value. and so if you can take that question seriously, what is the work that keeps working for me once it's done? And you don't even have, you don't need every minute of the day to be spent on things like that. But if you can do something each day that will continue to work for you after it's completed, you can turn around in a year or two years or three years, and you just have this enormous high leverage asset of all your previous effort continuing to work for you. day in and day out. And so once you, if you make that commitment and you stick to it consistently and try to do your best each time, you get like three or five years down the road and getting results becomes even easier because you have so much like, you have this like tidal wave of previous effort that's still working for you. So I think that's the core question to ask for, for taking high leverage actions.

I think that's so, I'm so glad you said this and I'm gonna asked one of my producers, either Chris or Mike or Travis, to just type in on my notes page right now, how many views the last interview with James got on YouTube total, and then also in the last month, how many views did it get? So some action we took four years ago, how many views did it get total, and then also in the last month, just type it in at the end of my doc so I can see it when you guys get that. My friend Rory Vaden has this acronym, this kind of method he calls dares, that we as entrepreneurs or individuals should be creating dares in our business. Digital, automated, reoccurring, evergreen, and scalable. And I love the evergreen, scalable, automated, you know, something that you can take action on now, a blog post that you wrote 10 years ago. still getting traffic today, it's still serving you today, it's still getting you opt-ins today for your newsletter, it's still getting you book sales. It's something you did 10 years ago is still helping and serving you today. And I think we, and this is why I love your analogy about radio versus a podcast or YouTube or something like that, or a long form article. something we did as on our show years ago, started recording and filming and putting on YouTube serves us today because it keeps getting views and shared and things like that. So I think it's, it's really cool that you said that I'm seeing the total views that we have just on the YouTube is over 300, almost 360, 000 views. Last 30 days, 8, 000 views. And yesterday, 250 views. So something we four years ago, 250 people watched it yesterday. And who knows, maybe five people bought the book or even if it's one person, it's still... And if you think.

About that in real life, if you give a talk to 250 people, you've got this full room. And it's like, in a sense, it's like we're doing that every single day. But that's just for this little version of James and Lewis. It's just that day's work. and you can do that again the next day and the day after that. And you, you know, you can see how a commitment to those kind of high leverage activities can really compound over time.

Make sure you guys get the book, Atomic Habits. If you haven't got it yet, if you're not one of the 10 million people who've already bought this, make sure you get it. There's going to be at least one chapter in here that will serve and support you now and your future self will thank you. So make sure to get this and get one for a friend. Also, your newsletter is extremely inspiring, powerful, over 2 million people have subscribed to it. 321 newsletter, make sure you guys go to jamesclear.com and you can subscribe. It'll be up there on the homepage and you can find a place to subscribe to it there. I also love all your social media stuff. I don't know if you've got a team doing that for you or what, but it's like if you guys want more bite size from the newsletter, you post all that stuff, you do it on Facebook and everything else. I love all that. So make sure that people follow you on your social media. You don't do a lot of personal stuff there, but your content is there, which I love. So they're always just.

Yeah, it's a very weird Instagram account. There are no pictures to me. It's just. It's just ideas. I. That's partially just because, like, I'm not interested in really being out there in as an individual, but it's also because I feel like it's a useful handicap. You know, like if I only, if the Instagram account or whatever is only text, the ideas better be good because you don't, I don't have anything else to hide behind, you know? It's like, listen, this either is providing enough value that people are going to follow this weird account that only has text or it doesn't. And I like kind of putting that sort of challenge on my shoulders. And it's like, listen, you got to deliver this week again, you know, because the text is the only thing there. So, yeah, it's, anyway, but yes, feel free to check that out and, and feel free to check out the newsletter.

How else can we, we as an audience community be of service to you in the best way in the next year moving forward? Oh, that's a nice question and very.

Generous, but honestly, like the main thing is I'm just trying to be useful, you know, like I, people have written about habits for a long time and they're going to keep writing about them for a long time after me. And I'm just trying to add my little bit to the pile. you know, like my contribution is very small in the grand scheme of things, but I'm trying to be useful, I'm trying to be actionable. And, you know, the best thing you can do for me is sign up for the newsletter or buy the book and take action on it, you know, try implement it, make some positive change in your life. Like that's the thing that makes me feel best is people taking the ideas and running with them and making them their own. So, yeah, just sharing some of your time with me is the biggest gift you can give. Love that.

And leave a comment below also on YouTube or if you're on social media and you're listening to this on audio, post on social media somewhere. The part of this episode and interview that you enjoyed or inspired by the most or the biggest takeaway for you, share that below. I'm sure James will enjoy seeing that one day. James, this is a question I believe I asked you last time four years ago. So, I'm going to ask you again from a different stage in your life.

Life.

You know, you just launched the book when I had you on, I think, four years ago or recently. You didn't have kids then. Now you've got kids. This is the question I asked everyone at the end called the three truths. So it's fitting towards your 3-2-1 in a way. Imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on Earth. Many years away, you live as long as you want to live, but for whatever reason, you know, Now's the time you got to go, you're however old you want to be. And you've accomplished and done and seen everything you want to do and see and experience in your life. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your works with you, your blog, your articles, your content, your books, everything you create for whatever reason it goes to this other place when you die. Hypothetical scenario. And we don't have anything to remember you buy. We don't have any of your work or content, but you get to leave behind three lessons or three things you know to be true from your experience. What would be those three truths for you that you would share? All right.

The first lesson is I'm happiest when I'm creating something. So whatever it is, find what you want to create. find what you can make and contribute to society. The second lesson is it is impossible to be a human and not have a body. So take care of your body. It's the only home that you have while you're here. And you cannot get a new one. You can't trade it in, you can't sell it, but you can renovate it. You can upgrade it, you can improve it. So the better condition your physical body is in, the more likely it is that you'll be able to make whatever contribution it is that you want to make or spend your time in whatever way it is that you want to spend it. And then the third lesson is all you have is time. And so the way that you spend your days is the way that you're going to spend your life. And a lot of the time people start by asking themselves what kind of results they want, but don't actually think about how they want to be spending their days. And I think that's the first question to ask yourself. You got this precious amount of time, this little sliver of life in the grand scheme of history. so how do you want to spend those days?

It's powerful, man. Great lessons. I love those truths. Before I ask the final question, James, I want to acknowledge you, man. I want to acknowledge you for how you consistently show up even after the massive success that you've created in the external world. I think it's really powerful that you consistently show up true to yourself. You've stepped into fatherhood, you've stepped into being a family man in a beautiful way from my personal experience, where it doesn't seem like you allowed the success of your business and your books and your writing to consume you. And you've stayed true to your personality since the person I met you 12, 13 years ago and who I've known casually over the last decade. to our interactions, to everything that you do. You stayed consistent to being a good human being and the best version of yourself that I, that I think that you can be. And it's really inspiring to witness, man, because most people, when they get successful, they make a lot of money or they get the fame or whatever it is, you see a lot of people shift and change their personality. You see people come more guarded, things like that, and you've stayed consistent from before. to now. So I really acknowledge you for how you show up, man. And I know it's not perfect and you got stuff to work on and new habits and all that stuff, but.

You'Ve done a great job and I just acknowledge you for that. Yeah, thanks, Louis. I really appreciate that, man. That's like probably one of the nicest things that someone could say to me. So thank you. I, you know, I'm just trying to be useful and helpful and produce things of value, but also like my career should serve me. Like I'm not trying to serve it, you know, like it's, it's just a tool. It's just a, it's just a thing. Like again, Atomic Habits can just be a project and the business can just be a business. It doesn't have to be everything. And I'm trying to do my very best with it when I'm working on it, but also like life is multi-dimensional and there's a lot more to it than that. And I have this whole new dimension now with my kids. And so yeah, like I lived a good life before this, but also this is this version is even better and it feels, it feels even bigger. And so Yeah, there are many ways to live a successful day and I'm kind of exploring some new ones now after having worked so hard for the last 10 years.

I love it, man. Final question and then we'll let you get your kids up from a nap, get back to your real day job right now. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Honestly, the longer I sit with it, I kind of feel like greatness is consistency or greatness is longevity. there's, I, there may be two things that came to mind. The first is I, I know, like, quite a few people who had really good days or really good years with their blog or something like that, but there just aren't that many people who've had, like, a really good 10-year span or really good 20-year span. It's just continuing to show up and do it, do whatever your thing is, whatever your craft is for a long time. It's kind of like consistency is great, is its own form of greatness. You know, longevity is its own form greatness. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, in a way, greatness only reveals itself on the hard days. You know, it's really easy to complain about, like I was talking earlier about how I had that difficult period writing Atomic Habits or whatever, but that, like, that kind of was the period that made the difference. You know, the days when it's easy to write or the days when it's easy to work out or the days when you feel good, everybody has those days. And yes, you still need to show up on those days. but that's not really creating any separation between you and everybody else who's showing up when they feel good. The days that create the separation are the hard days. And so in a sense, I almost feel like the bad days are more important than the good days, because if you can find a way to show up on the bad days, even if it's less than what you ultimately hope to do, but you just figured out a way to like not throw up a zero that day, that counts for a lot in the long run. So I think those are two ways of thinking about greatness.

I love it. James Clear, thanks so much, my man. Appreciate you for being here.

Of course, thanks Louis.

Appreciate it.

Often when we set about to change something or to achieve something, the first step is almost always setting a goal. And this is coming from someone like I was very goal-oriented for a long time, right? Yeah, I was like, goals were the things I wanted to do in sports, the goals for the grades I wanted in class, the goals for how much money I wanted to make in my business. And sometimes I would achieve.