MBA1148 Must Read: Atomic Habits by James Clear

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Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA Show Housekeeping for your business every single day with our daily Templ minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and Today's episode is a must Read episode On our Must Read Episodes I share with you a book that I've read that has greatly influenced me as an entrepreneur. I share with you its takeaways, its insights and why you should read it too. Today's must read is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Who We Are is basically a collection of our habits. That's how we become who we become. So essentially, if you want to become something better, then you need to change your habits. Whether it's getting rid of bad ones or creating good ones. But it's easier said than done. Hence this book. Atomic Habits is probably the best book I've read on habits. How to create them, how to change them, how to understand them. It's very, very apparent that James Clear did a lot of work in creating this book. In fact, I did a bit of research. And I'm not wrong. He spent years researching this topic specifically for this book. It's so well edited, so well put together, there's nothing you don't need in there. It's to the point, it's effective and for a subject like habits, it's a pretty easy read. It's a pretty light read. You would think something like this would be boring and dry, no? James does an excellent job at illustrating his examples with real life examples. I want to share with you today why you need to read this book. Why it's one of the best books I've read this year and what are some of the great insights I got from it. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I picked up this book, Atomic Habits by James Clear, because James has a great reputation for being a succinct writer. He's a very popular blog over@jamesclear.com, and many people I respect in our space started to recommend this book to me as it was launching, so I had to pick it up. I love a good read. As you know, I try to read 50 to 60 books a year and boy, did I not regret it. The first thing I want to point out about this book is I'm in shock how small this book is, how short this book is in comparison to the information that you actually get out of it. It's 320 pages. Yes. It's not a short book by any means. It's not like a hundred pages. It's. But it's also not five or six hundred pages. When I finished this book, I felt like I got so much out of it. It's like reading three books or something. Not only does James explain to you habits in general, like what exactly is a habit, how they get formed and all that stuff, but he has specific instructions on how to break old habits, how to build new ones, how to stick to them, and how you can look forward to actually building these habits you need to build. There's a section in this book that he talks about how to choose the right habits. And this is something I've never seen somebody really delve in deeply. He talks about that a lot of us, we know we have to build good habits, but what are those habits? What are those things I need to start doing well? He talks about taking a look at people that you admire, people that you look up to, people that you aspire to be like and to study them, read their biographies, understand what they do every day if you have a chance, interview them, talk to them, send them an email. Nowadays, on YouTube, a lot of people that are successful have videos on their daily habits. That's where you're drawing inspiration. That's where you draw your information. Those are the habits you need to build. If you look up to the actor Dwayne Johnson, for example, the Rock, you'll know that he wakes up at 4am to get his workout in. That's a habit you need to start building if you want to be like Dwayne the Rock Johnson. So I love how he illustrates and shows you how to choose the right habits for you. Now, one of the things he explains in the book is the effects of good habits. Habits are very small things that you do on a regular basis that accumulate and Make a world of a change in your life. He gives the example of the trajectory of a flight like an airplane. And if you change a few degrees north or south, your destination is going to be totally different. The problem is that today in society we want things fast. We want to lose 15 pounds in a week, we want to make a million dollars in three months. And habits are just not sexy. But he explains to you the benefits so you can get motivated. I've seen the effects of building good habits and in just in the last few years. Here's a little confession. I used to be a late riser. I used to wake up way too late. I'm talking about 10, 11 o' clock in the morning. And that's because I used to go to bed really late, one, even two o' clock sometimes. I used to say, hey, that's who I am, I'm a night owl. But the truth is I just wasn't that productive when I was waking up late. So in the last few years, Nicole and I have been trying to get up earlier and earlier and earlier. And now I'm happy to say that those days are over. And a day that I sleep until 8 is like sleeping in. Usually get up around 6, 30 or 7. And even though it's like 3 or 4 hours, it makes a huge amount of difference. I get so much more done in my day and I can finish work earlier and I can really spend more time to exercise and focus on other aspects of my life. But I didn't see the effects immediately. It took a few months, it took even a few years to see the holistic effects on my business, on my life, on my health. And James Clear really drills this home in this book, how habits are very, very small things we do on a regular basis, but builds upon each other and results in huge change in the long run. He says you don't need willpower, you just need to build the environment to make it easy for you to do the things you have to do and build an environment to make it hard for you to do the things that you don't want to do. He also talks about surrounding yourself with the right people. I love this chapter is it talks about that we all want to fit in. It's just our human nature. It's hard to go against the grain and against the group. So if the group is all doing the things that you want to do, that you want to achieve, the habits you want to form, it's going to be easy for you to fall in line. You're actually going to be inclined to do that and not go against the grain. This is why book clubs work, because everybody's reading a book in that club and at the end of the week you talk about the book, it's going to be embarrassing. It's going to be harder for you not to read the book, he says. Most of us don't stick to the habits we want to build because we don't build a community around them. We, we have New Year's resolutions. We say we're going to do this and that, but we never stick to it because we don't have the people around us to encourage us and discourage us from not doing it. He gave this great example of these three chess prodigies, grandmasters in chess. I forgot their names, but they grew up in the same household playing chess all day long. And it reminded me of Andre Agassi in the book that I reviewed, Open, where his whole life was tennis and that was just normal. And their environments encourage them to keep on getting better at tennis or at chess in this example because it's insight in mind. What James really does well in this book is reshapes your mindset allows you to focus on the small actions you could take over time that lead to results for the long term. Yes, this doesn't sound sexy, it sounds boring. But hey, it works. Doing things this way also means you're making lasting changes. You're developing new habits around good things which will motivate you to keep on going.

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A couple more things I want to share about atomic habits. James Clear explains things in this book in plain English. A lot of the stuff he explains is scientific. A lot of research, a lot of psychology. But hey, he brings it to the common level, which makes it easy for you to Absorb ideas quickly and move on to the next. This is how he's able to really give you a lot of information in a short period of time. There's also so many real world examples in there, I can't even tell you. Every time he explains something, he supplements it with a great example, actual examples that happen to real people. Now I also recommend that you should check out the Audible version, the audiobook version of this book, if you like audiobooks. James actually narrates the book himself and he does a fine job doing it really good. The other thing is that he has a lot of great supplemental material that you can download for free on his website and he mentions all these resources throughout the book. He gives you specific links that you can go to so you can create your own habits with your own charts, your own guides. You can see illustrations of the things he describes. He doesn't leave you hanging, gives you the worksheets you need to implement the things he recommends. I love that. That's a great little bonus that you get with the book. This book is so good. It's going to be my go to gift book. The book that I give as a gift because it's so useful. It's the guide to creating good habits and getting rid of bad ones. Well done, James Clear. Well, there you have it, guys. That's today's lesson. I hope you loved it. Pick up atomic habits and thank me later. You'll absolutely love it and it's going to help you in the long run. It's going to change the way you do things and create great habits for you so you can become the person you want to be. That's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. When I was reading this book, it made me really reflect on my own life. To really be self conscious in a good way, to really examine what am I doing right, what am I doing wrong, what are some of the things I can change? How can I improve who I am, where do I want to go, who do I want to be? And what is it going to take to become that person? These are really important questions that we have to always revisit because we reach milestones in our life and we need to keep on improving. And remember, when we improve, we're the leader of the business, we're steering the ship. So we improve, the business improves and so does everybody else on the team because, hey, you're leading them along the way. Thank you so much for listening. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidekicks or Auto and Home Insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote@usaa.com. bundle restrictions apply.