63: Atomic Habits by James Clear

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1. 00:00:00 Have an amazing sweatshirt on today Mike is it the bookworm sweatshirt?
2. 00:00:03 Totally the bookworm sweatshirt nice reminder if you want your own bookworm sweatshirt
3. 00:00:08 They are now available again. You don't have to wait till so many are sold you can buy them right now on cotton bureaus
4. 00:00:14 So we'll put a link to that in the the show notes for anybody who wants their own amazing bookworm sweatshirt
5. 00:00:20 I love this thing like this is so this is the hard part about these things like I love it
6. 00:00:25 But everybody expects me to love it. That's the problem with this like this is legit my favorite and it doesn't like
7. 00:00:32 Yes, I love that has bookworm on it
8. 00:00:34 But it doesn't have anything to do with that really well
9. 00:00:36 I shouldn't say that it probably does but it's super comfortable. I love it. It's a very very nice sweatshirt
10. 00:00:42 Go cotton bureau. I plus won your recommendation on the sweatshirt quality alone not the logo on the front
11. 00:00:48 Yeah, but you need to buy the one with the logo on the front totally
12. 00:00:52 Definitely can do that
13. 00:00:55 I have another follow-up question here for you
14. 00:00:57 It's actually not on the list okay, but because you brought up last time and I'm gonna put you on the spot here
15. 00:01:01 Okay, are you still meditating? I am all right
16. 00:01:04 So it's been what now a couple of weeks at least yep tells me my life is still chaotic
17. 00:01:10 No other insights you've gleaned from the practice I know that it has allowed me to focus when things are
18. 00:01:19 like especially nuts at
19. 00:01:23 At the office because I'm working corporate right now
20. 00:01:25 So like because of that I've noticed that it helps me significantly
21. 00:01:30 But and I think I mentioned this last time
22. 00:01:33 I was like I think that's simply an indicator that there's too much going in too many different directions
23. 00:01:37 Within that one realm sure like I'm pretty good outside of that realm but inside of it. It's it's corporate
24. 00:01:45 So it does help me significantly there
25. 00:01:49 I'm curious if I were to remove myself from that if the benefits that I'm seeing would simply
26. 00:01:54 Vanish into thin air obviously that's not gonna happen soon, but
27. 00:01:59 There you go. That's what I know so nothing especially new about it Mike just you know continuing that process
28. 00:02:07 It's still going strong though so far yeah kudos to you
29. 00:02:10 I'm trying to think people always people ask me this. What is the app? I'm using oak is what I use for it nice
30. 00:02:17 Which a lot of people seem to like for me it doesn't matter as much because I just do the silence unguided
31. 00:02:23 10-minute meditation, so it's pretty basic so you know pretty much any meditation app out there could handle that but
32. 00:02:30 Yeah, is what it is. I like it. There's so many meditation apps out there and so many of them have so many people using them
33. 00:02:37 If you want to laugh go download the episode of
34. 00:02:41 10% happier, which is
35. 00:02:44 Blinking on the name now is it Dan Sullivan? Yes
36. 00:02:47 Okay, so he has this podcast where he interviews people about meditation and there's an episode where they interviewed Gary Vee and
37. 00:02:55 They're trying to walk him through a meditation and he won't shut up long enough for them to do it
38. 00:02:59 But he keeps going on and on about how he's so into meditation because this is gonna be the next big thing
39. 00:03:04 Yeah, so he's not wrong
40. 00:03:07 But it is funny watching Gary Vee try to meditate we're listening to it anyways
41. 00:03:11 Gary Vee slow down for three minutes
42. 00:03:14 Yeah, oh
43. 00:03:16 Yes, I'm still meditating
44. 00:03:18 Dan Harris 10 days a happier right with Gary Vee. Yeah, I looked it up. I was like wait that doesn't quite sound right sounded
45. 00:03:25 Correct, but it wasn't sorry Dan Harris 10% happier. I have to follow up items
46. 00:03:31 You don't have any because you know you're like that. Yes, but I will say
47. 00:03:35 Having gone through this book. I feel more justified in my opinion about
48. 00:03:42 The invalidity of the four tendencies, but we'll get to that. It's okay
49. 00:03:47 I felt like it completely justified my entire beliefs on it. So okay, okay
50. 00:03:51 So anyways your action items sir. All right number one was external accountability with pro course tasks
51. 00:03:58 So the web business that I still run I've been posting my
52. 00:04:02 Action items for that business to my team
53. 00:04:05 at pro course I
54. 00:04:08 Can't say that they're especially holding me to it
55. 00:04:11 But the fact that I've posted things and they can see them is enough to get me to follow through on those so
56. 00:04:16 That's been going pretty well so far. So that was number one number two
57. 00:04:20 Tracking health items as a form of accountability. This has actually worked brilliantly for me
58. 00:04:25 Is just tracking the amount of coffee I drink and how much water I drink in a day, you know pretty basic and
59. 00:04:32 Also with like the meditation piece that's being tracked as well. What's the other piece sleep?
60. 00:04:38 steps
61. 00:04:39 Stairs like all those pieces are all like automatic for me. I don't have to do anything for him
62. 00:04:45 so I have been tracking all of those and
63. 00:04:47 I can tell from looking at some of that data
64. 00:04:51 like if
65. 00:04:53 My day went well or went poorly from a health stance like how exhausted was I like I can pretty much see it on those graphs
66. 00:05:01 Of how it all works out
67. 00:05:03 So it's working really really well and I know that from the time I started tracking a lot of that my health is improved to
68. 00:05:09 a small degree but enough to make it worthwhile so I will continue doing this it's very interesting and fascinating to me
69. 00:05:17 But I do know that I drink way more water than I used to just because I feel like I'm trying to make sure I hit my number
70. 00:05:25 So that does help me to to have a healthier lifestyle in that sense
71. 00:05:30 So, you know, I would say it's a very positive thing in that regard cool
72. 00:05:33 So you're tracking all the things all the things well a few small things in comparison to some people like I haven't even started so
73. 00:05:40 Yeah, sure sure still don't have an Apple watch still don't plan to have an Apple watch
74. 00:05:45 Sorry
75. 00:05:47 We're gonna get to it next time, but I just started the introduction to digital minimalism by Cal Newport
76. 00:05:53 You know, I'm curious to see
77. 00:05:55 How and if your opinion changes at all after going through that book?
78. 00:05:59 Yeah, and I know like I think I'm further along in that book right now
79. 00:06:03 Yep, then what you are but this I think I'm through chapter one
80. 00:06:07 I'm like halfway through chapter two that'll be an interesting conversation next time. That'll be fun. It will be
81. 00:06:12 But that's not what people are tuning in today to hear no
82. 00:06:17 Certainly not because this week we get to talk about habits. It's atomic habit time from James clear
83. 00:06:24 This is what I know you've been talking about for a while. Yeah, and it's been making the rounds
84. 00:06:29 I think I see why this will this will be a good conversation as well because this is a very
85. 00:06:34 How would I describe like this is a very action oriented and very dense book like yeah?
86. 00:06:41 Sometimes we get these books and I think you know like that should have been a blog post like
87. 00:06:48 You should have written three thousand words on a blog post and call it good James basically did that like ten thousand times
88. 00:06:55 And then pick the best stuff and put it into exactly so as much as I think you could take any one of these
89. 00:07:02 Concepts and turn it into a blog post the fact that he has a huge number of them in here
90. 00:07:07 It makes it well worth the time to read so I do recommend you pick it up. It is
91. 00:07:12 very very chock full of
92. 00:07:15 Here's something that might work for you and it's like at each step along the way
93. 00:07:20 It's like here's a way that you could build habits and here's another way you could build it and here's another way
94. 00:07:24 And it all depends on which of the strategies work better for you and which one do you want to take on so?
95. 00:07:29 I'm excited about this conversation because I think this is a really cool book
96. 00:07:32 Awesome
97. 00:07:34 Yeah, so I
98. 00:07:36 Have mentioned before that I really like this book
99. 00:07:39 So that's not going to be a surprise to anybody who's listening to this
100. 00:07:43 I also interviewed James clear before I left Asian efficiency and he's a really smart guy
101. 00:07:49 intimidatingly smart actually
102. 00:07:52 I think that's that's probably the only time I think I interviewed somebody where I just felt like over my head
103. 00:07:58 Talking to them just like they're a whole nother level sure
104. 00:08:02 But that's because James has lived this stuff for a really long time in fact in the beginning
105. 00:08:07 He makes a comment that in order to write a good book you have to become the book
106. 00:08:13 And I'm not entirely sure I agree 100% with that
107. 00:08:16 I do agree that that process definitely will create a good book
108. 00:08:19 But then I look at people like John Maxwell who have written hundreds of books and he mentions in the latest one
109. 00:08:25 Which I read for I actually am still reading for a gapbook leadership
110. 00:08:29 That he looks back at his his first books, and he's like that's garbage. It's terrible. I wish it would go away
111. 00:08:35 Like you want to go back and you want to you want to refine and all that stuff and upgrade it because you've changed
112. 00:08:42 And I think that there's a lot of validity to putting stuff out there
113. 00:08:45 And then and then looking at the results and making the changes that way
114. 00:08:49 But but anyways James perspective with this is that he had to embrace habits
115. 00:08:55 he has a crazy story at the beginning and
116. 00:08:58 I actually by the way, I read this the first time I went through it and this last time
117. 00:09:05 I went through the audible version of it
118. 00:09:07 So I got to hear James tell me the story because he he narrates it himself. He does. Yep. Okay. Yeah, those are always the best
119. 00:09:15 I think typically typically sometimes you have an author that just can't talk but
120. 00:09:19 Well, see that's the thing James can talk, but he doesn't my opinion anyways like it wasn't
121. 00:09:26 His excitement over what he was reading didn't come through like somebody like say Pat Flynn for will it fly because I listened to that
122. 00:09:34 I'm on audible as well
123. 00:09:36 There's some people who you can just tell and it comes through in their voice like they are super excited about this
124. 00:09:42 This topic and I wholeheartedly believe that James Clear is very much
125. 00:09:46 invested in cares deeply about this topic, but you kind of didn't get that from the audible version at least I didn't
126. 00:09:52 So I was a little disappointed by that
127. 00:09:54 But it is interesting though
128. 00:09:56 If you've read something in one way previously to go back and do it a different way because you pick up different stuff
129. 00:10:01 My action items this time were totally different than the ones I got when I read through it myself. Oh sure. Yeah, so
130. 00:10:07 Interesting, but his story just real briefly. He was a senior senior in high school. I believe we should probably throw a disclaimer out here
131. 00:10:15 It's like if you're a little queasy in the stomach like
132. 00:10:17 We won't share a whole lot of details. Yeah, maybe skip ahead. I don't know
133. 00:10:22 but anyways, he was an athlete so he was on the baseball team and a
134. 00:10:27 bat flew out of the batter's hands and hit him in the face and
135. 00:10:30 Like broke his nose broke his eye sockets
136. 00:10:34 They rushed him to the hospital. He almost died and it took him a really long time to recover and
137. 00:10:39 He basically had to embrace
138. 00:10:42 Habits to get back to not only where he was so he could do the things that he was doing before but then once he did that
139. 00:10:48 he started applying them to other areas of his life and he ended up doing really well and lots of different things but
140. 00:10:55 Like that was kind of the the origin story for James Clear's journey with with habits. Yeah, which is
141. 00:11:03 Kind of it he tells a lot of that story, which is
142. 00:11:07 Ugh, it just kind of made my skin crawl when I first read it and
143. 00:11:11 You can definitely see how that had led him to the whole process of building out
144. 00:11:18 basically a lifestyle yeah of
145. 00:11:22 building in these
146. 00:11:25 Actions and these daily activities that would continue to strengthen him physically
147. 00:11:30 but had the second level effect of building him
148. 00:11:34 Building the strength mentally as well. Yep
149. 00:11:37 So it's it's kind of cool to see how that all came about and he basically gives you the story of how he got to the point
150. 00:11:43 To writing the book, which is really cool
151. 00:11:45 But anyway, it is a crazy story when you hear about it, but it kind of made me a little like
152. 00:11:52 Yeah, exactly. So when I read the book
153. 00:11:55 hard hardcover the first time
154. 00:11:59 That story like almost had me in tears and then when I listened to it
155. 00:12:04 This is why I say like it didn't really sound like he was owning this thing because I totally expected him to be
156. 00:12:11 Dripping with emotion at that point, you know, and he's maybe he's just told it so many times that is yeah
157. 00:12:16 This is what happened to me. Yeah
158. 00:12:18 So it was kind of like weird though because I had such a strong emotional reaction to it the first time in the second time like
159. 00:12:24 It happened to him, but doesn't sound like he has the same emotion
160. 00:12:28 Right. It's just something that happened. Right. I don't know. Maybe he's in the stoicism
161. 00:12:33 Well, I'm sure he is. Yeah, but he once he gets past that story he leads us into the section on fundamentals
162. 00:12:42 Yes, and it's kind of an interesting
163. 00:12:45 It's an interesting area because he talks about how much habits play into your life and how much power they have
164. 00:12:54 Over what you accomplish in life and probably the the intro one of the and we've got three points here to talk about
165. 00:13:00 but one of the interesting points that he gets to is that
166. 00:13:03 Because habits have such a powerful effect
167. 00:13:07 They they lead you to trying to build out
168. 00:13:12 Systems of doing things as opposed to setting goals to accomplish
169. 00:13:16 You know because the goals have just like a one time like once you reach it
170. 00:13:20 Then what yeah, whereas the systems once you have those in place and you have all of these habits developed
171. 00:13:26 You just continue to work towards improvement on those and they can lead to a lot bigger gain in the long run
172. 00:13:33 That was something it was really interesting to me. It's like okay. Well, I
173. 00:13:38 Have a tendency to want to set goals
174. 00:13:41 You know, that's what everybody in the productivity space tells you to do is like set your goals for the year
175. 00:13:45 like set your goals for the next eight weeks like set your goal for this quarter and
176. 00:13:50 He kind of comes out this like no, like that's a terrible thing to do. Why would you do that?
177. 00:13:56 I was like, thank you James. I appreciate that. I hate goals
178. 00:14:02 Yeah, so
179. 00:14:05 Just as just to clarify this he defines goals as the results you want to achieve and systems as the processes that lead to those goals
180. 00:14:13 And one of the problems that he identifies with goals which this
181. 00:14:18 Totally spoke to me was that winners and losers have the same goal
182. 00:14:24 So it's kind of a confirmation bias that we interview the people who won the game the championship
183. 00:14:30 Whatever and they talk about how they set this goal to beginning of the year and how they achieved it because everybody else
184. 00:14:35 Had probably the same goal, but they're the only ones who who got there. So how do you reconcile that?
185. 00:14:42 He also says achieving a goal is only a momentary change goals restrict your happiness goals are odds with long-term progress
186. 00:14:49 So the way to really make long-term progress is not to set a singular goal and then achieve it
187. 00:14:56 but to stick to the the system and
188. 00:15:00 Get 1% better all the time. He says on page 27. You do not rise the level of your goals
189. 00:15:06 You fall to the level of your systems and he starts this chapter with the story of the British cycling team
190. 00:15:12 Which just real briefly they were middle of the pack and then they had a coach who came in and he challenged them to get 1% better
191. 00:15:19 And every every single facet of the of what they did
192. 00:15:22 And so they did and those 1% changes added up and then in five years
193. 00:15:26 They won 60% of the gold medals they won five out of six tour to France races, which they had never won before
194. 00:15:32 You know and he uses this I think he's got the chart here
195. 00:15:36 I know for sure he has it in the blog post
196. 00:15:38 But the 1% changes how they add up if you got if you got 1% better every day at the end of a year
197. 00:15:43 You're over 37 times greater than you were at the beginning
198. 00:15:47 But likewise if you got 1% worse 0.99 every day that that compounds to 0.03 at the end of the year
199. 00:15:54 so almost nothing and
200. 00:15:56 Really the the point is that you don't need to be chasing this huge goal
201. 00:16:00 You have to make these very small shifts in direction
202. 00:16:04 From where you are right now and then those lead to a very meaningful change in your destination
203. 00:16:09 Yeah, I like the stories about like cycling and such like I was reading some of that. Oh, that was a really bad cycling team
204. 00:16:15 They won like that's cool. Yeah, I like the like the stories - there's one thing in here the outcome base habits versus the identity base
205. 00:16:23 Habices kind of relates to this so just a personal story. I guess relating to this
206. 00:16:29 Last May I ran my half marathon and I finished but I ended up hurting myself in the process kind of had to start over
207. 00:16:37 Okay, and I hadn't read this book at that time
208. 00:16:41 So I remember feeling when I had finished the half marathon
209. 00:16:46 Like it felt cool to be to have accomplished my goal
210. 00:16:48 But I knew that I had hurt myself the positive high that I got from finishing this race after all these months of
211. 00:16:55 Training and now I'm gonna have to deal with the the physical therapy and stuff like that. It's kind of like is this it?
212. 00:17:01 Was this what it was for?
213. 00:17:04 It almost doesn't seem worth it at that point
214. 00:17:07 So one of the things that he talks about here is the identity based habits versus the outcome based habits the outcome would be
215. 00:17:14 Running the half marathon
216. 00:17:16 But he's saying you don't want to do that you want to embrace identity based habits
217. 00:17:20 And you want to become the type of person who does the thing that you want to do
218. 00:17:24 So the key is to change your identity
219. 00:17:27 You don't want to run a marathon you want to become a runner likewise
220. 00:17:31 You don't want to read a book you want to become a reader and your habits are how you embody your identity
221. 00:17:36 The difference here is that the outcome based habits go from the outcome and then they go to the process
222. 00:17:41 And then the belief is that if you do this long enough you'll embrace the identity
223. 00:17:45 Whereas the identity is kind of like inwards
224. 00:17:47 Going outward where you identify this is who I am and then the process or the system
225. 00:17:53 This is what I have to do and then that naturally leads to the outcome and the score takes care of itself
226. 00:17:58 Yeah, I thought that was a very interesting
227. 00:18:00 This is that section was one that probably struck me the most in the book which I was not expecting
228. 00:18:05 Usually something that's gonna strike me is usually somewhere in the middle towards the end
229. 00:18:09 After they've got some of my groundwork laid this one kind of hit me right at the beginning
230. 00:18:13 Which I was not ready for and I thought was completely unfair
231. 00:18:17 but
232. 00:18:18 It was interesting that a lot of times when I think about the habits that I want to build
233. 00:18:24 It's all about the the action itself that I want to do so like for example
234. 00:18:29 I I have kind of fallen out of it. I did it for a long time, but journaling at night
235. 00:18:33 Like I've thought of that as like yes, I would like to journal at night
236. 00:18:37 but
237. 00:18:39 That's the outcome
238. 00:18:41 Like the process of course is grabbing the pen and paper and sitting down a writing but the outcome is having journaled
239. 00:18:48 But what he's saying is instead of saying that you want to have journaled at the day
240. 00:18:54 You want to be the person who journals? Yes, exactly which is a simple subtle shift in
241. 00:19:00 How you talk to yourself? Yep, which I don't really like I'm not one that gets all
242. 00:19:06 You know lovey-dovey over that sort of thing like they've always felt kind of fluffy to me
243. 00:19:10 but for whatever reason this one kind of got me and it's like okay, well I
244. 00:19:17 Am not someone who journals once in a while. I am a per like I am a journaler. Yep
245. 00:19:21 It's it's different when you think about it that way
246. 00:19:24 I'm kind of trying to use that specific
247. 00:19:28 I have an action item on that one, but like that one is one that I want to
248. 00:19:32 To work on but it just kind of hit me like well, it's different, but
249. 00:19:37 It does have an impact and he spells that out like okay
250. 00:19:42 You can you can set the goal, you know, or set the system to have you doing these habits
251. 00:19:48 But it's when you embrace that as your identity that it can start to truly become part of what you do every single day
252. 00:19:54 Yeah
253. 00:19:55 And that's the the mindset shift that has to take place for this stuff to to really stick like just as an example
254. 00:20:02 I've shared the story before of when I wrote my book
255. 00:20:06 I was getting up at 5 a.m. to write for an hour every day before I went into the office and eight months later
256. 00:20:11 I had self-published my my book
257. 00:20:13 but for a long time I didn't write it because I was
258. 00:20:17 Having an identity crisis. I'm not a writer. I I hated English class in high school
259. 00:20:23 so I
260. 00:20:25 Had to I had to embrace the identity of being a writer before I could say that the goal of writing a book was ever going to be
261. 00:20:32 Possible and then from that point
262. 00:20:34 What does a writer do they show up and they write? Right? Okay?
263. 00:20:37 So James Clear says on page 38 that every time you do that every action you take is a vote for the type of person that you wish to become
264. 00:20:44 So number one you embrace this identity and then number two you prove it to yourself by showing up every day and doing these things
265. 00:20:51 And the more that you do that the more you believe in the identity the identity that you've ascribed to yourself
266. 00:20:57 And so it's kind of it kind of has a snowball effect. Yeah, but I should say like all of these
267. 00:21:02 like no matter how you look at
268. 00:21:05 Habits and what you do every day. They're all behaviors that you take and
269. 00:21:10 It all involves like when you're talking about building habits. Those are all behavior changes. Yep
270. 00:21:17 That's where he spends the rest of his book is how do you go about implementing new habits behavior change and
271. 00:21:24 He's got these four laws
272. 00:21:26 that make it easy
273. 00:21:29 To or that help you guide you through the process of building in these behavior changes in these habits
274. 00:21:35 Those four laws and we're gonna go through each of these four the first one is make it obvious
275. 00:21:39 Second law is make it attractive
276. 00:21:42 Third law is make it easy and fourth law is make it satisfying and I think we'll we'll talk about each of these four
277. 00:21:50 but I also want to mention that
278. 00:21:52 these are when you want to
279. 00:21:54 bring on something new positive and
280. 00:21:57 He does call out, but we're not gonna spend a lot of time on it with how to
281. 00:22:02 to basically flip these
282. 00:22:04 Such that it it helps you to overcome the bad like how do you break up bad habit at the same time?
283. 00:22:11 He goes through that piece as well again. I don't know how much time we're gonna spend on that particular piece, but
284. 00:22:18 You know, it's it's interesting if you flip these but yeah, like so make it obvious like the inverse of that is make it invisible
285. 00:22:26 So if you have a bad habit make it invisible
286. 00:22:28 Make it attractive make it unattractive make it easy make it difficult
287. 00:22:34 Make it satisfying make it unsatisfying like if it's a bad habit just flip it on its head and do the opposite
288. 00:22:40 right and these all line up with the
289. 00:22:43 the the the Q routine reward cycle that we learned about in the power of habit and
290. 00:22:50 Actually in this book James talks about the history of that and it's actually not
291. 00:22:55 Charles Duhigg or the people from MIT who originally came up with those three steps
292. 00:23:01 I believe he attributed it to BF Skinner in like the 1950s that sound right it sounds about right? Yeah
293. 00:23:08 Okay, but then he adds another step which I think is really important
294. 00:23:13 Which was always something that until I read this book
295. 00:23:16 bothered me about that habit loop from the power of habit, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it and
296. 00:23:21 He adds right after the cue the craving so step one is a cue step two is the craving number three is a routine number four is to reward
297. 00:23:29 So really what this is saying is that when you see the cue the craving is triggered
298. 00:23:35 But that doesn't mean necessarily that you have to follow through with it whereas the power of habit is like oh
299. 00:23:40 There's a cue. I guess you're gonna do this thing
300. 00:23:42 Yeah, so that that always bugged me when I when I go back now and I look at that cue routine reward
301. 00:23:48 It seems so wrong to me now that I have embraced
302. 00:23:52 Or understand James Clear's model sure
303. 00:23:55 No, I think he he does call it out because that was one of my
304. 00:23:59 skepticism's coming into this book was we just read a book not too long ago about
305. 00:24:04 habits and
306. 00:24:06 How does this compare to?
307. 00:24:08 To that that's probably a question a lot of listeners have I would say if you're going to pick between those two do this one
308. 00:24:16 Definitely I think do Hig did an excellent job, but I think James Clear takes his work and
309. 00:24:24 Builds off of it significantly so much so that it feels like a completely different
310. 00:24:29 Topic almost it does so I would highly recommend this one over that. I feel like James Clear's book gives you a lot more hope
311. 00:24:37 I don't know if it's that but he gives you a lot of action items that make it very reachable sure
312. 00:24:43 I guess by the end of the do Hig book
313. 00:24:45 You know when he talks about the gamblers and the people who are dealing with addictions and just kind of like oh
314. 00:24:50 That's what they do like it's kind of like yeah, what a sad way to
315. 00:24:54 View this stuff. There's another we can do we're going to be manipulated by the target guy
316. 00:24:57 And if we've had trouble with gambling or alcohol or anything like that's just the way it's going to be and it's like oh
317. 00:25:03 Yep, no
318. 00:25:05 Doesn't have to be that way you can make positive change in your life
319. 00:25:07 And I feel like James Clear gives you the framework to do that. Yeah wait till we talk about minimalism next time with Cal Newport
320. 00:25:14 Right
321. 00:25:16 Have you noticed like I think we're interested in reading that book
322. 00:25:21 All right, stop. All right first law make it obvious
323. 00:25:24 Basically you want to start a new habit?
324. 00:25:28 What should you do make it absolutely obvious?
325. 00:25:32 That's the task is in front of you and one of the ways that people talk about doing this like probably the classic is
326. 00:25:39 Set your clothes out the night before like put on your running clothes
327. 00:25:42 The habit is not going for a run the habit is getting into your clothes like
328. 00:25:48 Yep, like if you can get into the clothes if you can get that first step done the rest of it can follow suit
329. 00:25:54 Because once you have your workout clothes on, you know
330. 00:25:57 It's almost more work to go change again than it is to go through with the run exactly
331. 00:26:01 Yeah, that's the concept. He's talking about here
332. 00:26:04 Yeah, and there's a couple of things that are really interesting in this this first section in this first
333. 00:26:10 Chapter in this section actually he talks about the the Japanese practice of the train systems the pointing and calling do you remember that?
334. 00:26:17 I do which was very interesting to me. It kind of made me want to start calling things out when I leave the house
335. 00:26:22 Yeah, so this is kind of like the checklist from the checklist manifesto except that the
336. 00:26:27 Conductors will literally point to the thing that they are looking at and say it out loud
337. 00:26:33 So say you have a checklist of things you need to check before the train leaves the station
338. 00:26:38 They're gonna point to each one and say the no the gap is minded
339. 00:26:44 Since then the UK they got that the mind the gap, you know, that's only thing I can think of up in my head
340. 00:26:48 But that actually saves somebody's life one time because there was this lady who was chasing her kid and the kid got into one of these
341. 00:26:55 Like high speed bullet trains and her arm got stuck in the door and because the conductor was going around and pointing at everything
342. 00:26:59 He pointed at the platform because that's what he always did and he noticed that this this woman had her arm stuck in the train
343. 00:27:06 So they opened it up let her out. No crisis diverted
344. 00:27:09 But that point in calling he says in this first chapter this actually reduces mistakes by 85%
345. 00:27:16 Which seems like a really high number, but I don't know I guess I I guess I kind of believe it
346. 00:27:22 Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense
347. 00:27:24 I mean if you're constantly calling like if you
348. 00:27:27 Look at it the fact that you're saying what should be there and if it contradicts what you're saying
349. 00:27:34 That'll flip a switch in your brain like whoa something's not
350. 00:27:38 Not where it's at whereas if you're not calling it out. It's easier to
351. 00:27:43 Just skim over it and not actually look at it even you just kind of maybe glance out of the corner
352. 00:27:49 Eye instead of actually acknowledging it but by saying it out loud
353. 00:27:52 It kind of trips the trigger and says you're you're paying more attention to it than you would have if you didn't call it out
354. 00:28:00 Yeah, that's a surprising thing
355. 00:28:01 I guess is that we think that we noticed these things
356. 00:28:05 But basically the statistics are saying that you don't notice anything
357. 00:28:09 You're actually pretty terrible at remembering to do stuff and doing it right unless you physically point at it
358. 00:28:15 Which I don't know I can see a lot of people being like I refuse to believe that like I've yeah
359. 00:28:20 I've been doing it this way and I haven't had any catastrophic mistakes one of the pieces of this
360. 00:28:26 Law that he calls out is something called habit stacking as a way to take advantage of this and
361. 00:28:34 It's it's exactly what it sounds like you're stacking one habit on top of another
362. 00:28:38 Because for example, let's let's use like a nighttime routine. You're going to bed
363. 00:28:44 You brush your teeth what you could do because a lot of people have the habit of brushing your teeth
364. 00:28:50 But not as many people have the habit of flossing their teeth
365. 00:28:54 You can you can fight me on that all you want but I have yet to hear a dentist tell me that people on average
366. 00:29:01 Floss their teeth just as much as they brush them
367. 00:29:03 so what you could do is take advantage of the fact that you already have the habit of brushing your teeth and
368. 00:29:09 Build in the connection of brushing my teeth flossing my teeth brushing my teeth flossing my teeth and connect those two yep now
369. 00:29:17 Personally I have a tendency to want to floss my teeth before I brush them
370. 00:29:21 But hey, you know if it helps you get into the habit, it's better than not doing it at all
371. 00:29:24 so
372. 00:29:25 That that's the concept there is you take advantage of one habit stack another one on top of it because then it becomes
373. 00:29:31 An obvious transition. Yeah, the key is that you
374. 00:29:34 Have to the the queue needs to be the same as for the the old habit as the new habit that you're you're trying to create
375. 00:29:42 So if you do something once a week and you want to you want to create a daily habit
376. 00:29:48 Don't try to stack it on top of the thing that you do once a week
377. 00:29:52 Yeah, make sure that you do it on something that you do every day and then the order I think matters too because
378. 00:29:57 Like like you mentioned with the flossing you like to do it before you brush your teeth
379. 00:30:02 And I agree like I do that that too
380. 00:30:04 but the
381. 00:30:06 To the book habit stacking would be I am already doing this thing so after I do this thing
382. 00:30:11 I'm going to do this thing also right so minor minor thing there
383. 00:30:15 but I really think that this whole idea of
384. 00:30:18 Habit stacking and then really even and pointing it going back to pointing and calling really just like understanding and identifying
385. 00:30:25 The habits that you have in your life, which I know this is a recurring theme and I've got action items for this
386. 00:30:30 But this is really important. He shares a quote from Carl Jung
387. 00:30:34 He says until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate
388. 00:30:39 That's pretty powerful and it also is kind of pretty it's kind of sobering too because whether you like
389. 00:30:48 Your situation where you are right now or not
390. 00:30:52 What he's basically saying is that what you have done has gotten you to this point and I don't think anybody anywhere can argue with that
391. 00:30:59 Right and then really it's like okay
392. 00:31:02 So you are where you are like don't look back and be upset that the stuff happened
393. 00:31:06 But how are you going to implement positive change?
394. 00:31:08 How are you going to continue to get 1% better and it feels very approachable when you freeze it that way?
395. 00:31:14 It's not like okay, so by the end of of this year
396. 00:31:17 I'm gonna have done this thing and that's gonna lead into this new season of my life
397. 00:31:21 And I'm gonna launch my my side business whatever all I got to do is is not break the chain essentially
398. 00:31:27 Which is another point maybe we'll get to it. Maybe we won't he does talk about that in here
399. 00:31:31 But I just need to focus on today
400. 00:31:34 I just need to focus on doing this one thing this 1% better in whatever whatever area it happens to be and
401. 00:31:39 That's gonna compound and that's gonna gonna add up but until you identify this stuff
402. 00:31:44 And you know he mentions the habits scorecard in here where you can literally put an axe for
403. 00:31:51 Every every day that you you do something
404. 00:31:53 Until you start doing that stuff you really have no idea what what is contributing to your current situation until you take stock or inventory of that stuff
405. 00:32:00 Yeah, I want to call out like I've got two action items two different habits that I'm wanting
406. 00:32:05 To build in both of which like one of them has to do with mental health the other one has to do with physical health
407. 00:32:10 I have a lot of little ones that I'm trying to pay attention to
408. 00:32:14 But I didn't know how to put an action item around that so I didn't
409. 00:32:17 But one of them that I'm wanting to do is get back into the journaling habit
410. 00:32:23 I want to be a journaler to follow through on that
411. 00:32:26 But one of the things that I'm trying to do with that is
412. 00:32:29 To take this make it obvious law at face value is I have a notebook that I use for journaling
413. 00:32:37 in
414. 00:32:39 Past days I normally would just stick it in with a lot of my other notebooks in my bookcase
415. 00:32:46 Which means it like it's kind of out of the way. I don't see it. It's not in front of me
416. 00:32:51 Same thing like whenever I do journal I like to use my fountain pins because you know fountain pins rule the world
417. 00:32:56 So you know fountain pins are my thing so I like to use them for for journaling so
418. 00:33:03 In order for me to actually journal I have to go over to the bookcase get my journal
419. 00:33:09 Go to my backpack grab my pin and then sit down and do it so
420. 00:33:15 Pretty simple, but those two steps are enough to stop me from doing it at all
421. 00:33:19 So what I'm trying to nail down is
422. 00:33:22 How do I throughout the day or in the morning or when I'm done?
423. 00:33:27 Just have it set up such that all I have to do is sit down a right
424. 00:33:30 Yep, I'm trying to get it to where I have that in a place that I sit down
425. 00:33:36 Every evening and do that so that it's as simple as it could possibly be
426. 00:33:43 That I think is what at least one piece of
427. 00:33:46 This law there's you know
428. 00:33:48 You can go into the third law and jump ahead to make it easy like I'm kind of playing into that a little bit as well
429. 00:33:53 But this one if I have it in front of me and I can see it
430. 00:33:57 It's a lot easier for me to actually follow through on it. Yep, definitely
431. 00:34:02 That's that's the big takeaway
432. 00:34:04 I think from this book in terms of implementing this stuff and creating the habits that maybe you've tried to create previously
433. 00:34:11 but have been unable to do so is don't just try to
434. 00:34:15 Discipline or willpower your way into doing them consistently but change the terms of engagement and dip the scales in your favor
435. 00:34:23 Right. He does talk about discipline in this section, which I'm not sure I 100% agree with this
436. 00:34:29 But he talks about how discipline people construct their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control
437. 00:34:35 so really it may look like they have a lot of willpower or self-control
438. 00:34:40 But really what they've done is that they've changed their desires and so the person who eats healthy all the time
439. 00:34:49 Still has the still like they still like the chocolate cake
440. 00:34:53 but they've attached enough desire to
441. 00:34:57 Liking eating the vegetables that they're able to resist it and so you look at it
442. 00:35:02 You're like oh wow you have so much more willpower than I do because I ate the chocolate cake
443. 00:35:05 But really they just kind of shifted their mindset and they've attached to the long-term vision and they've identified with the healthy person
444. 00:35:12 Who is the identity that they're becoming and what does a healthy person do they don't eat chocolate cake at the end of every meal?
445. 00:35:18 Right, you know that that's kind of the thought process there. I do think that there's some truth to that
446. 00:35:24 but I also think that
447. 00:35:26 maybe it's not just
448. 00:35:31 Creating the habits. Maybe there is a management piece to some of the stuff that happens
449. 00:35:37 Throughout your day in terms of your your willpower as well
450. 00:35:42 So habits would be one way that you could manage your willpower and conserve it for the things that really matter
451. 00:35:48 But if you work in an office environment, which I mean you do Joe
452. 00:35:52 So you know that there's like stuff that'll happen and there's nothing you can do about it
453. 00:35:56 And at that point it doesn't matter what what habits you've created like you still have to deal with this stuff
454. 00:36:01 Right, yeah, and so you can create habits around that you can control what you can control
455. 00:36:07 But I think that habits are part of the bigger picture here not the whole thing
456. 00:36:12 Yeah, like for example if you take deep work and combine it with the one thing and
457. 00:36:17 Then throw in a corporate office environment where everybody sits, you know across from each other at tables and stuff
458. 00:36:22 You know, we don't even have cubicles. I don't even have the wall there. There is no wall and
459. 00:36:27 That means that if I sit down and try to focus on something I
460. 00:36:31 Have to plan for like a 20 minute
461. 00:36:34 one thing period in the morning for my work because the rest of the day is going to be spent answering questions or
462. 00:36:42 Distracted work of sorts thus why the meditation piece is helpful, but yep, that's that's the work environment
463. 00:36:51 I
464. 00:36:52 Don't agree that that's the environment that they should be creating
465. 00:36:55 But that's the one that the company has decided that they want people to operate within
466. 00:36:59 So or maybe they haven't decided that's what they want you to operate in
467. 00:37:03 But it's just the way things with things are people don't even consider it they're considered in this case. I
468. 00:37:08 Know that for a fact
469. 00:37:12 It's specifically designed to do that in this case and it's actually going to
470. 00:37:16 They're actually moving us to a more open office area. So we're actually going to get worse
471. 00:37:23 So anyway, you know, that's that's my opinion. They know how I feel so I don't mind if they listen to this. It's totally cool
472. 00:37:28 but
473. 00:37:30 With that environment it's like in this case they have specifically designed it to be that way
474. 00:37:35 It's not great for working in those scenarios and it doesn't matter how many habits and such
475. 00:37:43 I've built in because I could be following suit on
476. 00:37:48 My afternoon tea time which gives me the time to think through on what it the projects
477. 00:37:54 I'm working on but that won't necessarily hold because I never know when someone's gonna walk over tap me on the shoulder and say hey
478. 00:38:01 Joe do you have
479. 00:38:03 Who knows when that's gonna happen so my habits don't like it doesn't matter
480. 00:38:07 It doesn't matter what I do. Yeah, I could build in the habits on how to respond to that
481. 00:38:11 But that's corporate like that's that's the way that they want it to be
482. 00:38:16 To operate so is it efficient? Is it the way to build a workplace? I would say no
483. 00:38:21 I would tell them that this is not helpful, but that's what they want
484. 00:38:25 So this is this is the environment they're trying to build so there that you just kind of go with it
485. 00:38:29 There's not a whole lot you can do with that other than just figure out how to work around it
486. 00:38:34 If you can get time to work on your deep work or one thing scenarios
487. 00:38:37 But other than that, you know, you kind of have to build habits around like how you respond to those situations
488. 00:38:44 And that's what I try to do. Yep. Do I have it figured out? No, but it's still a process for sure
489. 00:38:50 There's my little rant on it. Sorry. Yeah, but but all that stuff as it happens is going to deplete your will power or your
490. 00:38:58 Mental energy correct over else you want to define it
491. 00:39:01 So it doesn't matter what sort of eating habits you have when you get get home
492. 00:39:06 If you have junk food in the the pantry you may automatically go to it because you're completely spent that that's kind of the point
493. 00:39:12 I was I was I was making is that James clear makes it sound like well as long as you implement good habits
494. 00:39:17 Then you'll be super successful, but sometimes you're in an environment where it's working against you and there's nothing you can do
495. 00:39:23 You just got a role with the punches and again control what you can control, but yeah
496. 00:39:27 And that's an interesting thing too because like I do work in that environment
497. 00:39:31 And I have a pretty strict diet that I stick to which people have been asking me what it is
498. 00:39:37 It's like a modified paleo is the easiest way I can explain it because a lot of people understand paleo to some degree
499. 00:39:44 I'm not die hard on that
500. 00:39:46 But I like that it's a runoff of that but it means that I cut as much sugar out as I can and
501. 00:39:51 There's a lot of times like right now. There's a lot of cookies upstairs
502. 00:39:55 I've not touched one of them since they've been made and
503. 00:39:59 It's because I kind of and it's it's partially because James clear has helped me with this
504. 00:40:04 The whole outcome versus identity based thing
505. 00:40:07 Whenever I like for example, it'll be snack time when we get done
506. 00:40:11 Recording here because you know Joe's family is a group of hobbits time for 11 z's totally so
507. 00:40:18 Whenever I come up from recording. It's going to be snack time. Guess what everybody else is gonna do
508. 00:40:24 cookies, you know
509. 00:40:26 and like
510. 00:40:28 Whereas my reaction has to be no, I I'm a healthy person
511. 00:40:34 I'm going to eat nuts and berries or you know, whatever it is that I
512. 00:40:37 Decide to go with but that's that's what I have to do and that has helped with the discipline side
513. 00:40:43 Is it a myth? I don't know. I don't know if I'm with you or against you there Mike, but that's
514. 00:40:49 That's kind of my take at the moment
515. 00:40:52 Sure
516. 00:40:53 one other thing that we should call it from here and then that'll lead into the second law is this whole idea of the environment which I
517. 00:41:00 alluded to when I mentioned that if you are out of willpower and you've got cookies in the pantry then maybe
518. 00:41:07 It's gonna be harder to resist them
519. 00:41:09 I think there's a lot of other factors that go into that but probably people who were listening at that point who have studied
520. 00:41:14 This at all were yelling at me because they're like just don't buy the cookies
521. 00:41:16 Yeah, and that definitely is something that you could do another thing that James
522. 00:41:21 mentions regarding that which I think is a pretty genius tip is that
523. 00:41:25 You don't have to be the victim of your environment. You can be the architect
524. 00:41:29 So what does that mean?
525. 00:41:31 That means you can set up your environment in a way that it facilitates the habits that you want to create for example
526. 00:41:37 It's easy to not practice your guitar when it's put away in the case because there's no obvious trigger
527. 00:41:42 So I actually have a stand that I put my guitar in
528. 00:41:44 In my office and nice now when I walk into into my office
529. 00:41:49 I see my guitar and guess what I play my guitar a lot more nice
530. 00:41:52 You can also change your location which allows you to escape mental biases and makes it easier to make new habits
531. 00:41:58 One of the key things that he talks about in this section is one space one use which I think is really interesting
532. 00:42:05 It's also very interesting if you apply it to your digital devices, but again put a pin in that till next time
533. 00:42:10 That's next time. Yeah, so that might be something that you want to think through to is not just where the habits
534. 00:42:16 I want to create but where do I want these habits to to happen right?
535. 00:42:20 Which kind of leads into the second law which is make it attractive because you can set up your environment to be attractive
536. 00:42:25 But there's lots of other things you can do to make your habits attractive as well like
537. 00:42:29 Well, one of the things that he mentions is super normal stimuli heightened versions of reality or these
538. 00:42:36 Exaggerated cues and he says that society is filled with these highly engineered versions of reality that are more attractive
539. 00:42:43 than the world that our ancestors evolved in so we've kind of
540. 00:42:48 subjected ourselves
541. 00:42:50 Willingly unwillingly whatever to this dopamine driven feedback loop
542. 00:42:55 And he shares some research about how they blocked the dopamine and the rats brains in this study and it caused them to lose the will to live
543. 00:43:02 They still liked things like sugar, but they didn't want it the desire had died
544. 00:43:06 And likewise when they flooded their brains at dopamine then they performed their habits at at breakneck speed
545. 00:43:12 So dopamine the pleasure chemical isn't just for pleasure. It's actually involved with motivation learning memory punishment aversion and voluntary movement. So
546. 00:43:21 What we need to do is we need to apply those things towards the positive habits that we want to
547. 00:43:28 Want to create and likewise you had listed the inversion of these four laws for the habits that we want to
548. 00:43:35 To eliminate so we don't want to make it attractive
549. 00:43:38 We want to make it repulsive if it's something that we want to stop doing and we can implement what he calls
550. 00:43:43 Temptation bundling with the habit stacking that you had mentioned at the beginning
551. 00:43:48 So that would look something like after my current habit
552. 00:43:52 I will do another habit that I need after I do that habit that I need I will do another habit that I want
553. 00:43:58 So that's kind of getting into the reward piece of this, but that's kind of how those pieces fit together. Yeah, and I think maybe
554. 00:44:06 I was trying to think through the example here because like the
555. 00:44:10 one of the other action I know I'm working on is like an exercise habit and
556. 00:44:14 This one I like I really wish and I know listeners
557. 00:44:20 I wish I could give you more on this
558. 00:44:21 But I wish I could sit here and talk through like how I'm exactly planning to use a lot of these different aspects to do that
559. 00:44:27 the problem that I have is with
560. 00:44:30 you know
561. 00:44:32 fighting lime is a scenario where
562. 00:44:34 the specific types of exercise have different reactions for me and
563. 00:44:39 For example, if I do something that generates like it really gets my temperature up and I get really hot and sweaty and you know typical, you know
564. 00:44:49 Stereotypical exercise like that can cause like what's called a Herx reaction for me not gonna go into all that
565. 00:44:56 But it means the next day basically I'm shot
566. 00:44:58 So it can be a good thing in the long run, but it means the next day
567. 00:45:03 I'm not gonna be good for much of anything. Well, I can't do that on a weekday
568. 00:45:07 Like so I can't do it, but maybe once a week. Well, that's not enough exercise
569. 00:45:13 so
570. 00:45:14 For me like I can't sit here and say okay
571. 00:45:17 This is what I'm planning to do because I haven't fully figured out what type of exercise I should be doing
572. 00:45:22 So that's part of this for me is I've got some research to do to nail it down, but I know that regardless
573. 00:45:30 One thing that I need to do is
574. 00:45:32 Whatever that activity is because I'm not one that just loves to go exercise like this is going to be a working
575. 00:45:39 Like it's gonna be a challenge for me
576. 00:45:41 So I need to try to nail down something that I can do immediately after
577. 00:45:46 Exercise that is attractive to me because I feel like that's something that like okay. I don't get to
578. 00:45:52 X I wish I had an example
579. 00:45:55 But I can't do X until I've done the exercise like to me that's gonna be a big piece in this process
580. 00:46:02 And I think that's exactly what he's talking about in this second law of making it attractive with the temptation bundling piece
581. 00:46:07 Like take advantage of a positive habit to help you build in one that
582. 00:46:13 You know is positive, but it's not as easy going as the other is. I hope that makes sense
583. 00:46:20 Well, I can I can give you an example. Okay, so I mentioned I
584. 00:46:25 Ran my half marathon and I'm training to do it again this May and that requires
585. 00:46:31 Some distance running in the winter in the Midwest. Oh
586. 00:46:36 That doesn't happen outside. Good luck lately
587. 00:46:39 Yeah, so I have to go to the gym and use the dreadmill. I mean treadmill, which is
588. 00:46:47 So incredibly boring right but there is a YMCA that we're members of which is like 20 minutes from my house
589. 00:46:54 It's a bit of a drive. It's it's downtown in Appleton, which is the the bigger city. We live next to that
590. 00:47:00 Suburban I guess of a city with a hundred thousand people so whatever but anyways, it's a bit of a pain to get there
591. 00:47:07 But they have treadmills that have this like virtual active stuff built in so you can plug in like
592. 00:47:12 I want to run through downtown Vancouver or I want to run through
593. 00:47:15 The small towns in Italy or I want to run through the Swiss Alps, you know
594. 00:47:19 And then it's kind of like drone footage of so it's a little bit more interesting
595. 00:47:22 The bottom line is that if I get to the Y I can do a distance run in the winter because that is enough to keep me
596. 00:47:28 Interested in what I'm doing. Okay, if you just put me on any other treadmill after a couple miles like I can't take this anymore
597. 00:47:35 So getting to the Y and and running like that's something that I try to do
598. 00:47:41 But there's obviously a lot of friction and resistance to doing that especially if I'm not downtown like at the co-working space previously anyways
599. 00:47:49 So kind of the way that I've rewarded myself for putting in the long runs
600. 00:47:55 Because I'm at the point where I'm running
601. 00:47:58 8 9 miles, you know, it takes over over an hour to do that
602. 00:48:03 But right across from the Y there's this little hole in the wall Europlace which has amazing euros
603. 00:48:09 But I'm never gonna go down there and get get euros anyways
604. 00:48:12 So that's kind of like my reward for putting in the long run and burning a thousand calories on the treadmill is that afterwards as
605. 00:48:18 I'm walking down to the locker room a place the the order in the in my phone
606. 00:48:22 And then I'll by the time I take a shower walk out of the Y my euro is ready
607. 00:48:25 So that's that's kind of the way I've done this is after I
608. 00:48:29 After I get on the treadmill and I run 8 to 10 miles
609. 00:48:34 Then I will go eat my euro and not feel bad about it. I like it
610. 00:48:38 I'm not gonna do that because that would cause a lot of pain for me, but you know that's yeah
611. 00:48:43 Yeah, yeah, no definitely and in fact I was I was thinking about your situation and obviously this is a conversation
612. 00:48:48 We can have off offline, but I think there's options for you
613. 00:48:51 And I don't know exactly which one is gonna fit
614. 00:48:54 But I do encourage you to to look into that so absolutely my brother is really into like that high intensity interval training
615. 00:49:00 I don't know if that would be too much for you
616. 00:49:02 And this is also where as you were talking about that
617. 00:49:04 I'm thinking something like an Apple watch may actually be beneficial because it's gonna give you that ring and you're gonna be incentivized to close that ring
618. 00:49:11 I know Sean McCabe. He's done it like 600 days in a row or something like that
619. 00:49:16 He's actually got a bunch of people that he shares his activity with but he'll only share it with you if you commit to closing that ring every single day
620. 00:49:23 Yeah, because he wants to surround himself with those kinds of people which kind of leads into the
621. 00:49:28 The other point about the the groups that we imitate habits from yeah
622. 00:49:32 Yeah, which is which is interesting because
623. 00:49:35 like I'm trying to take advantage of a number of these pieces to make it easier for myself and
624. 00:49:42 Again, I don't know what types of exercise I should be doing
625. 00:49:45 I'm pretty sure it's avoiding things like going for runs and doing like heavy lifting and stuff because because of the impacts that those have on like joints
626. 00:49:53 but things like resistance workouts or
627. 00:49:57 Even some of the more intense like yoga side of things like I've I've seen a lot of folks in
628. 00:50:03 With my whole scenario getting into that so I think it's one of those
629. 00:50:09 but I think your groups to copy thing from like James's whole explanation here like there are these different groups of people that we have a
630. 00:50:18 tendency to imitate and
631. 00:50:20 one of those are just your friend groups and
632. 00:50:23 The people that you're around all the time you'll have a tendency to copy them
633. 00:50:27 This is you know
634. 00:50:28 This goes back to what you were told by your mom in grade school
635. 00:50:30 Be careful of the friends that you make like that's that's exactly what this is because you'll have a tendency to copy them
636. 00:50:37 I'm trying to take advantage of that to some degree and trying to
637. 00:50:40 Talk about the exercise thing to some degree with the friends that I have because I know a number of my friend groups do
638. 00:50:48 Have a lot of exercise habits. So if I get them to talk about it, it makes me feel guilty for not doing it. So
639. 00:50:54 There we are
640. 00:50:57 Right, so the three groups that we can imitate habits from just to close that loop number one the close your friends like you mentioned
641. 00:51:05 number two is the many and
642. 00:51:07 Number three is the powerful. So number one the close we imitate the habits of the people that we're close to
643. 00:51:13 He shares that your chances of becoming obese
644. 00:51:16 Increase 57% if you have a friend who becomes obese
645. 00:51:20 Which is a lot the many number two when we're unsure of how to act we look to the group
646. 00:51:28 This can have both positive or negative
647. 00:51:31 consequences because the normal behavior of the group is going to override the desired behavior of the individual and
648. 00:51:37 Then the powerful we try to copy the behavior of people who are successful because we want to become
649. 00:51:43 successful ourselves
650. 00:51:45 so this is fascinating to me because
651. 00:51:48 Personally, I believe you can combine all three of these and I think Jim Rohn kind of hit on was it Jim Rohn?
652. 00:51:56 We said that you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with
653. 00:52:01 So the five people that you spend the most time with assuming that they are successful
654. 00:52:06 They are the close and if you're spending a lot of time with them
655. 00:52:10 They are in a lot of instances the many and as long as they're the right people they are also the powerful so can you?
656. 00:52:16 combine all of these into an accountability group or a mastermind or a community
657. 00:52:24 Where the desired behavior is the normal behavior and you have something in common with the people there?
658. 00:52:31 I believe that you can and this is what I want the Bookworm Club to become
659. 00:52:36 I think that someone had mentioned that we should be sharing our action items on the club as well
660. 00:52:43 So if we want other people to do it, we should do it too. I think that's a great idea
661. 00:52:46 Yeah, I'm gonna start posting those
662. 00:52:48 I guess I'm gonna have to manually go in and comment on those and say here are my action items from the episode but
663. 00:52:54 I'll create a category for it. We'll create a new topic for each one of them
664. 00:52:57 Okay, but I think that if you're listening to this podcast
665. 00:53:01 Obviously you want to get those dots and those ideas that can inspire you to do better
666. 00:53:09 Be more excellent in whatever area of life you you want to improve in
667. 00:53:15 I would I think if you were to boil down the one common characteristic of people who listen to this podcast it would be the growth mindset
668. 00:53:23 Okay, so that is that is gonna take care of category number three
669. 00:53:27 Category number two and category number one
670. 00:53:30 I think are kind of related so if the people that are around you the people that you're if you're gonna go check a site
671. 00:53:36 Over and over and over again, you know
672. 00:53:38 Don't go to Twitter or Facebook where people are posting all their trash go to places where people are saying things that are going to build you up
673. 00:53:45 and
674. 00:53:46 The Bookworm Club could totally be that and I think like there's there's some interactions in there right now
675. 00:53:52 And it would have to really be exponentially
676. 00:53:55 Multiplied in order for it to get to the point where people had the same compulsion to go in there all the time
677. 00:54:01 Like they do a social media network
678. 00:54:03 But it has that that potential and then also
679. 00:54:07 Really you get out of it what you put into it
680. 00:54:10 So you can become as close to the people that are are on those groups as as you want to be and if you want to be a lurker
681. 00:54:17 And just see what everybody else is doing. That's fine
682. 00:54:20 But if you want these people to be the close people for you
683. 00:54:25 Then you got to put forth a little bit of effort, but that's why
684. 00:54:29 Podcasts are so cool in my opinion
685. 00:54:32 because you instantly have a seat at the table with the people that you're listening to and
686. 00:54:37 It always
687. 00:54:39 Amazes me when I meet somebody at a conference for example and they're like yeah, I listened to bookworm
688. 00:54:45 I listened to focus, you know, and I can't believe I'm talking to you and I'm like, I'm just a guy
689. 00:54:50 I struggle with this stuff. Just like you do. I don't have this all figured out, but I'm on the journey
690. 00:54:55 What?
691. 00:54:56 Yeah, let's talk about you know what I've learned what you learned and maybe we can help each other
692. 00:55:01 Those are always fun conversations like I don't know what I'm doing either like
693. 00:55:06 Hate to burst your bubble in fact
694. 00:55:10 I did a I did a podcast the other day as we're recording this it's been published with with J Miller productivity and tech and
695. 00:55:17 He introduced me and he's like Mike Schmitz. Why don't you tell everybody who you are now? Well, I'm a poser
696. 00:55:23 But it was as a fun conversation, so I'll put a link to that in the show notes that people want to go listen to that
697. 00:55:30 I like J. That's fun
698. 00:55:31 All right, third law
699. 00:55:33 So the first one make it obvious
700. 00:55:36 Second law make it attractive third law make it easy and I kind of alluded to this one earlier
701. 00:55:41 Yep with the journaling habit of
702. 00:55:43 Making it crazy easy to get into like if it's if the notebook is set out and the pen is there
703. 00:55:49 All I have to do is sit down and start writing like that makes it crazy easy
704. 00:55:55 To get into whereas if I have things spread out all over the house, it makes it incredibly difficult now again
705. 00:56:02 You can flip this for habits that you want to break
706. 00:56:06 And he talked a little bit about you know if you have a habit of watching TV at night
707. 00:56:12 Make it difficult to watch TV take the batteries out of the remote and hide the remote
708. 00:56:15 Yeah, by the way when he said that I'm like, hmm. I wonder where he got that idea
709. 00:56:19 Yeah, yeah, but he mentioned I
710. 00:56:21 Think it was kind of in passing. He's like, you know, and if that's not enough, you know
711. 00:56:25 Unmount the TV from the wall and put it in the closet. Yeah, what?
712. 00:56:30 Maybe not
713. 00:56:32 Wow, that would be an undertaking
714. 00:56:35 You would probably never watch TV if you just took it off the wall and you had to go install it every time you wanted to watch TV
715. 00:56:40 Yep, that would be quite the deal, you know, there's commitment but that anyway
716. 00:56:45 That would be the opposite of make it easy make it difficult if you're trying to break a bad habit
717. 00:56:52 Yep
718. 00:56:53 Yeah, how badly do you want to break that habit?
719. 00:56:55 It's kind of what it what it comes down to yeah one of the big things that I liked in this section was chapter 11
720. 00:57:01 He says walks or the title of chapter is walk slowly but never backwards
721. 00:57:06 So this is where I think is in this chapter he talks about how the the days that you don't feel like doing it
722. 00:57:14 But you show up anyways those are the ones that are most important
723. 00:57:18 So it's the bad workouts that are actually the important ones because you don't lose the progress that you've made
724. 00:57:25 If you just show up every day and one of the things that he calls out in this section
725. 00:57:29 Which is very important to understand if you're going to track yep
726. 00:57:34 I showed up every day is the difference between motion and action
727. 00:57:37 Because motion makes you feel like you're getting things done
728. 00:57:42 But never leads to results and he says that preparation can become a form of procrastination
729. 00:57:48 So motion can be planning motion can be strategizing motion can be learning and as somebody who's trying to launch
730. 00:57:55 A course and a business
731. 00:57:57 This is tough for me because there's a lot of stuff
732. 00:58:00 I know that I don't know and so I have to figure that stuff out but
733. 00:58:04 James Clear would say that the days that I spend researching instead of writing or creating those are days where I've
734. 00:58:12 I've got motion, but I haven't produced any action, which is the actual doing it's producing the result
735. 00:58:18 All of the learning isn't going to translate into moving the needle for faith-based productivity
736. 00:58:24 I have to actually do the work no big deal. Yeah minor
737. 00:58:30 It's a minor detail, but for somebody who
738. 00:58:33 Who has a growth mindset? I think maybe you're even more susceptible to this because
739. 00:58:38 The fact that you're learning something means nothing if you do nothing with it, right?
740. 00:58:43 That's the challenge to everybody listening to
741. 00:58:46 Bookworm and to us when we go through and you write down our action items
742. 00:58:51 That's why the external accountability a bookworm is so great because I know you're going to ask me about this stuff
743. 00:58:56 And so I can't just put it off and do nothing
744. 00:58:59 It's going to cause me to do something with it
745. 00:59:01 And really like if I were to read these books on my own not show up and talk to you about them and not take action on the action items
746. 00:59:07 Is there any benefit from reading these books?
747. 00:59:09 Probably not, you know if it doesn't change anything, right?
748. 00:59:12 And it's going to get like the accountability side of it's going to
749. 00:59:15 Explode once we start putting these on the club. Yeah, I know
750. 00:59:20 I've been sitting here thinking about this to some degree well that that kind of ties into
751. 00:59:25 The commitment devices because he talks about like the personal contracts and he has some crazy stories of people who have done some ridiculous
752. 00:59:32 Contracts there was one guy who like if he didn't weigh himself every day then his wife got to spend $500
753. 00:59:39 Whoever she wanted like
754. 00:59:41 Is is crazy ridiculous, but and he James even admits when he talked to this guy
755. 00:59:46 He's like I think that that's a little overkill and the guy's like no no no because if I don't do it this way
756. 00:59:50 It's not going to happen. Yeah, and so I don't know at some point
757. 00:59:54 Yeah, it is kind of scary to to up the stakes and putting our action items publicly on the club where everybody can
758. 01:00:02 Chime in and hold us accountable like that is raising the stakes
759. 01:00:06 but
760. 01:00:08 If we really want to apply this stuff then it's worth it
761. 01:00:11 That's really the the question that you have to ask is
762. 01:00:14 Is it worth it? Am I willing to pay that price?
763. 01:00:17 John Maxwell actually in leadership says that so i'm going to mess it up, but basically
764. 01:00:22 Success isn't complicated. It's just harder than a lot of people think and if you're willing to pay the price
765. 01:00:29 You can be successful, but not very many people are willing to pay that price. Yeah
766. 01:00:33 I think there's
767. 01:00:35 And I haven't done this. I've been debating it to bring a parenting aspect into this
768. 01:00:40 Is I've been trying to work with our oldest
769. 01:00:43 She's in the middle of piano lessons right now
770. 01:00:47 And she loves doing piano lessons, but I haven't figured out if that's because she likes
771. 01:00:51 Having the time to talk to her piano teacher
772. 01:00:53 Or if she actually likes playing the piano because she doesn't you know, it's typical. She doesn't like doing
773. 01:01:00 the practice at home
774. 01:01:03 but what I've debated is
775. 01:01:05 Taking on
776. 01:01:07 The learning of an instrument with her
777. 01:01:09 So that I could come alongside her and be a part of that with her
778. 01:01:13 Yeah for a long time. I've wanted to pick up harmonica and learn how to play that
779. 01:01:17 I haven't made this decision, but I've debated picking that up as a way to
780. 01:01:21 Kind of build in a commitment device of sorts with her
781. 01:01:25 It's like, okay
782. 01:01:27 I will practice if you practice or it's something that's probably the wrong way to do it
783. 01:01:31 But something along those lines that
784. 01:01:34 Helps both of us stick to that so that that's something I've played around with for her
785. 01:01:40 Granted, she's six. So, you know, we're not
786. 01:01:46 I'm not gonna drive her to the bone
787. 01:01:48 But that's that's something I've played around with is how do I help my kids build in good habits as well?
788. 01:01:54 Yeah, uh using some of these but it's it's a little
789. 01:01:58 Challenging because you're not the one
790. 01:02:00 Like you're not the one setting the intrinsic motivation inside of them. Yep
791. 01:02:06 like you can try to lead that and try to
792. 01:02:08 Persuade them towards that, but you can't actually make those commitments
793. 01:02:13 Kind of throw a parenting flair on there, but that's that's from a commitment device
794. 01:02:17 Like I've played around with that concept of picking up a harmonica so that I could learn it with her
795. 01:02:21 But does joe need another thing to be doing right now? Probably not so
796. 01:02:25 Yeah, you know, there we have it. Thus no action item for learning harmonica
797. 01:02:29 Well, let me let me just piggyback on that a little bit because
798. 01:02:32 Our kids are a little bit older and we've got three of them now in piano lessons
799. 01:02:37 But the piano lessons that they are involved in
800. 01:02:41 Through the the local music store
801. 01:02:43 Embrace what's called the yamaha method and basically the parent shows up and does the music lessons with the kid
802. 01:02:50 They practice with the kid at home and it's not like you're doing everything exactly the same
803. 01:02:55 But it's kind of like partner activities, right?
804. 01:02:58 And so you could theoretically learn piano with your kid if you were doing something like the the yamaha method and I
805. 01:03:06 recognized now
806. 01:03:08 how brilliant that is
807. 01:03:10 because it's no longer just the kid has to
808. 01:03:14 Has to have the motivation to follow through and practice at home, but the parent is involved with it as well
809. 01:03:21 So instead of you go practice, it's together. Let's go practice
810. 01:03:26 Right, you know and also it's a group lesson
811. 01:03:29 So if your if your daughter is is social for example
812. 01:03:33 Then they're around other peers or the kids their age who are doing the same thing
813. 01:03:38 And so there's kind of like a positive peer pressure that's that's going on there as well
814. 01:03:42 Yeah, she's not so that would be the opposite of
815. 01:03:45 Well
816. 01:03:46 Some of my kids are not also but
817. 01:03:49 It's surprising to see I mean a lot of the kids that are in those classes are not that way
818. 01:03:54 Because there's a couple goofballs, you know who like to make everybody laugh and they're really outgoing, but you know jonathan is
819. 01:04:00 our our third child he's
820. 01:04:04 Very very quiet, but he loves it. He loves being around those kids even if he's not
821. 01:04:08 Talking and chatting with them all the time. So you might you might be surprised
822. 01:04:12 Yeah
823. 01:04:13 I also want to talk real quickly about the commitment devices because you can
824. 01:04:17 Where these are really powerful
825. 01:04:19 I think as I read this uh as I read this section
826. 01:04:23 Is when you want to eliminate a negative habit so you you probably can apply these in a positive context as well
827. 01:04:30 But if you really want to break a bad habit, you can set up systems which are going to make it
828. 01:04:36 Make it very very difficult to do that sort of thing
829. 01:04:40 So you mentioned like taking the batteries out of the remote that would be one example of a commitment device
830. 01:04:45 A couple other things that he mentions in here are the cash register because that kind of
831. 01:04:51 automated ethical behavior because stealing became nearly impossible
832. 01:04:56 And he mentioned I think he does this
833. 01:05:00 Where he has his assistant change his social media passwords
834. 01:05:03 On monday morning and then keeps them from him to friday
835. 01:05:07 So he did that when he was writing this book he gets a social media passwords on friday
836. 01:05:11 He can mess around on social media over the weekend and then on monday he can't log in anymore
837. 01:05:15 Yeah, which I thought was brilliant like if you really want to go to that extreme
838. 01:05:18 But again, that's kind of the question that you have to ask regarding all these habits is
839. 01:05:22 How how extreme are you gonna go with this stuff? How badly do you want it?
840. 01:05:25 Yep, that's that's an intense one. Yeah
841. 01:05:28 Something i'm ready to go go there yet, but who knows maybe after digital minimalism
842. 01:05:32 We'll see
843. 01:05:35 All right fourth law last one here make it satisfying
844. 01:05:38 and
845. 01:05:40 This is coming to the fourth side of
846. 01:05:43 the the four step process into
847. 01:05:45 The habit with the reward side and just like what it sounds like positive reinforcement
848. 01:05:52 Make it happen immediately. That was a big thing is something
849. 01:05:57 You know the moment you've completed that habit that reward needs to happen right then it can't be delayed
850. 01:06:02 Yep, if it's delayed you may not connect it like your brain won't connect it to
851. 01:06:06 The the process that you went through but whatever it is it has to happen immediately
852. 01:06:12 Yeah, so this is a really
853. 01:06:14 Important piece is this whole idea of making it satisfying you're right
854. 01:06:19 You have to have that immediate reinforcement right away and you have to view your situation the right way because
855. 01:06:25 habit outcomes
856. 01:06:27 are often
857. 01:06:29 misaligned so
858. 01:06:31 As an example like with a good habit the immediate outcome usually is negative
859. 01:06:36 The ultimate outcome though is positive where with bad habits the immediate outcome is positive the ultimate outcome is is negative
860. 01:06:44 so
861. 01:06:45 you have to kind of
862. 01:06:46 Figure out and hack your motivations here because the more immediate pleasure that you get from an action
863. 01:06:52 The more likely you are to to repeat it but also the more immediate pleasure you get from an action that could also be a warning sign because
864. 01:06:59 You should probably question whether it aligns with your long-term goals what you want to do is build in that motivation to your long-term goals
865. 01:07:05 Get those incentives to to start a habit and then the identity that's what's going to help sustain it
866. 01:07:12 Exactly and then do it over and over again. Yep. Don't break the chain
867. 01:07:17 Exactly. Yeah, this is this is the part where he talks about the the jerry sinefeld thing
868. 01:07:22 and uh, really the point is not that you're not going to miss but never miss twice
869. 01:07:27 So
870. 01:07:29 What do you do when you when you break a habit and he makes the argument?
871. 01:07:34 That the important thing is not that you missed
872. 01:07:38 A day but that you get back on the the horse the next day never missed twice
873. 01:07:44 And this is where he talks about the cost of missing a day
874. 01:07:48 Being greater than the cost of showing up even for one of those bad workouts where you're not on your a game
875. 01:07:54 But at least you showed up
876. 01:07:55 Because he talks about the the compound effect and he uses some numbers to describe this i'm not trying to get this right
877. 01:08:02 But let's say, you know, you're you're at 100 and you
878. 01:08:07 Improve by 50 percent. Okay, so you know, you've gone from 100 to 150
879. 01:08:13 So that is a 33 percent gain
880. 01:08:16 But if you went 50 backwards, it's a 50 loss. Does that make sense?
881. 01:08:21 It makes sense. I'm not sure the math holds up with it, but yeah, yeah, well, that's
882. 01:08:25 I'm positive. That's exactly this this numbers that he used
883. 01:08:30 But the main idea here is that yeah, you're gonna miss everybody's gonna mess up
884. 01:08:34 But what do you do when you mess up because when you miss once it's very easy to excuse it and miss again
885. 01:08:41 And that's where the habit tracking really helps
886. 01:08:44 And this is something I was thinking about with the habit tracking and a lot of the the app in particular that i've been thinking that
887. 01:08:50 I want to track my habits with it's kind of built on this whole concept of streaks
888. 01:08:53 And if you break a streak and let's say you're at 100 days on your your streak and then you break it
889. 01:08:58 It's it can get really demotivating to have to start over
890. 01:09:02 So i'm not entirely sure how I want to handle that yet because if you did like the x's on a piece of paper
891. 01:09:08 You at least still see everything that you had done previously you still see the hundred days that you got in a row
892. 01:09:13 And i'm not not entirely sure
893. 01:09:16 What I want to do with this, but I do think that this is a really important piece
894. 01:09:22 Is this this habit tracking because we don't really understand what we do unless we track it
895. 01:09:29 We can think that we do a pretty good job of resisting something
896. 01:09:33 But if we put an x for every time we did it we might be surprised how many x's show up on on the
897. 01:09:39 On our sheet for the things that we want to eliminate sure and I I need a way to do that
898. 01:09:44 I think with the habit tracking like there's a ton of apps out there that do it
899. 01:09:47 And I would assume that's probably where you're gonna go
900. 01:09:51 with it, but I
901. 01:09:54 I think you're right in saying that if you had something that said
902. 01:09:57 I've been at this for a hundred days in a row like awesome. That's amazing
903. 01:10:03 But what happens if you miss that day?
904. 01:10:05 What comes next like what do you do after that point?
905. 01:10:09 Well
906. 01:10:11 If you don't have the number
907. 01:10:13 On there like if you just have a whole bunch of x's on a calendar on the wall
908. 01:10:16 You're not gonna go through and count them
909. 01:10:19 Like maybe you have a count on them you can get a rough idea
910. 01:10:22 But if you miss a day, I feel like it doesn't hurt as much
911. 01:10:24 Yeah, as if you're looking at a number that says 173 on the app and then you break it and it starts over and it shows you zero
912. 01:10:32 Exactly that zero
913. 01:10:34 Is pretty demotivating
914. 01:10:36 Whereas if you have a calendar on the wall with x's on it
915. 01:10:38 And you miss a day
916. 01:10:41 And then you pick it up against in the next day. You still see all those x's like you still see
917. 01:10:45 All of that history exactly whereas most of the apps that are out there don't do that
918. 01:10:51 Right like they they don't treat it that way. They say like streaks like that's even the name of one of them
919. 01:10:56 Like that that's what they do like it starts over whereas that's not
920. 01:11:01 I don't think that encompasses the full intent here. I think it has a
921. 01:11:06 Potential to actually do a little bit of harm in the process
922. 01:11:10 Yeah, the apps aren't
923. 01:11:13 aren't designed in a way
924. 01:11:15 That is in alignment with what james says on page 201
925. 01:11:19 He says the first mistake is never the one that ruins you it is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follow missing once is an accident
926. 01:11:25 Missing twice is the start of a new habit
927. 01:11:28 So yeah, if you did it 100 days in a row and you miss once it's like all of that gets thrown out the window
928. 01:11:33 When really the the most important thing is that that next day, but
929. 01:11:38 I don't know like at that point you've got the new identity
930. 01:11:43 Maybe that you're trying to to uh to align yourself with and the old identity
931. 01:11:48 Which you've cast a lot of votes to say like I am the person who it doesn't work out and who eats junk food and stuff like that
932. 01:11:54 So it's almost like when you're trying to create a new habit embrace a new identity and stuff like that happens
933. 01:12:00 It's like aha see you're not who you think you are
934. 01:12:02 Yeah
935. 01:12:04 Towards the end of this section he gets back into accountability again
936. 01:12:07 Yep, you kind of get the hint that this is something that's important
937. 01:12:11 I I don't know if you have anything else that you want to say about this, but I think there's there's an interesting aspect here with
938. 01:12:18 You know take the streaks idea the calendar piece. That's a form of accountability
939. 01:12:23 the the tracking I do on coffee and water that's kind of a form of accountability because
940. 01:12:28 I know that if I am not tracking it like well then my whole data set is compromised
941. 01:12:33 So I'm being accountable to myself in that way
942. 01:12:37 So I think there's different forms that this can take
943. 01:12:40 Obviously the club bookworm club could be that as well, but I don't know. Is there something else you want to say about this?
944. 01:12:46 Well the the title of the chapter
945. 01:12:49 That this pops up in is how an accountability partner can change everything
946. 01:12:53 So
947. 01:12:55 You're right. There are different ways that you can provide accountability
948. 01:12:58 But I would challenge people who really want this stuff to stick
949. 01:13:02 To find an accountability partner somebody who is going to hold your feet to the fire
950. 01:13:08 He mentions in this section that pain is an effective teacher if failure is painful
951. 01:13:13 It's going to get fixed if it's painless
952. 01:13:15 It's going to get ignored and the more immediate the pain the less likely the behavior
953. 01:13:19 So if you can find the right person
954. 01:13:22 Who is going to hold you accountable to the changes that you want to make and this is also where he mentions like the habit contract
955. 01:13:29 But even without a formal contract an accountability partner. I think is a very
956. 01:13:34 Powerful and important idea. So I put it in this outline because I wanted to touch on it
957. 01:13:40 But we kind of hit it earlier right?
958. 01:13:42 He does in the whole book with a conversation about advanced
959. 01:13:48 tactics when it comes to habits and one of those
960. 01:13:52 Which is interesting that it I have to admit I was a little bit caught off guard by this
961. 01:13:58 But it made a lot of sense once he went through it was taking habits
962. 01:14:01 and combining that with the concept of deliberate practice
963. 01:14:06 Which we've talked about in a few different books here and there the primary primary one being
964. 01:14:12 Creating flow by mahali cheek sent me holly. Did I get it? Yeah, I got it
965. 01:14:17 Which he totally talked about but didn't give credit to which yeah, I was waiting for it right
966. 01:14:21 Never happened. Yeah, I was waiting for it, but
967. 01:14:24 He he eluded to it, but he and which was kind of surprising because he was pretty good about attributing
968. 01:14:29 Most everything it seemed like yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know that was kind of odd to me
969. 01:14:34 but he did bring it up
970. 01:14:36 And I thought it was interesting that he brought that particular piece into this book because it's true
971. 01:14:41 like if you want to get into an advanced form of
972. 01:14:46 A certain area taking your habits and doing the deliberate practice piece
973. 01:14:50 Which if you're not familiar with that you don't have listen those other episodes
974. 01:14:53 It's the concept of being very intentional with just that practicing
975. 01:14:57 A given task and continually looking for ways to improve
976. 01:15:01 Even in minuscule ways so you're deliberately trying to improve that particular task
977. 01:15:07 If you combine your habits with that
978. 01:15:09 That's what james is getting at and showing the potential power to become a professional or an expert in that particular
979. 01:15:16 Field. I think that's primarily what he's getting out there
980. 01:15:19 Yeah, exactly he talks about the upside and the downside of habits in this last section where you can get so automatic at doing something that
981. 01:15:27 You stop noticing the errors and you stop making improvements
982. 01:15:31 And that's where the deliberate practice piece comes in so you're not just automating this thing
983. 01:15:36 It's something that you do and then after a while you've developed bad habits and the process of doing this thing
984. 01:15:41 You're constantly striving to to get better in a specific area
985. 01:15:46 Which kind of leads into the concept of the cbe or career best effort
986. 01:15:50 Which I really like and I don't I don't have an action item specifically to this
987. 01:15:56 but I do want to
988. 01:15:58 Think about how and if I want to incorporate this into an annual review is what james clear calls that I would call it a personal retreat
989. 01:16:07 So he does he does actually talk about personal retreats in this at the end
990. 01:16:10 He talks about a couple of questions for the annual review that I liked what went well
991. 01:16:14 What could have gone better and then really importantly I think what did I learn?
992. 01:16:18 And then the other piece of that which he talks about is the integrity report
993. 01:16:22 So what are the core values that drive my life and work?
994. 01:16:24 How am I living and working with integrity right now?
995. 01:16:26 How can I set a higher standard for the future?
996. 01:16:28 I obviously am coming at this through the lens of creating the personal retreat handbook
997. 01:16:33 So I have like a little mini course on this
998. 01:16:36 And I thought that the questions that he posed alone were pretty weak. I think that you could you would create a
999. 01:16:44 Right. So I mean obviously I'm looking at this through a certain perspective
1000. 01:16:49 Right, but I feel like that's a very important topic that he just touched on in the last chapter that
1001. 01:16:55 Could have been maybe an entire book. I don't know. Maybe I will write a book on it at some point
1002. 01:17:00 There you go. See that's your action item right a book on personal retreats
1003. 01:17:04 That's see that's that's what james wanted. He simply wanted to spark that in somebody. Yeah. Yeah. He also mentions that
1004. 01:17:11 There's he has like a supplementary chapter on like habits and parenting
1005. 01:17:16 Which is interesting because I don't think he has any kids
1006. 01:17:19 but also as
1007. 01:17:22 As I'm reading this again, my wife and I are working on another video course the intentional family
1008. 01:17:27 Which I guess I just teased it
1009. 01:17:30 But it's not going to be out for for a while
1010. 01:17:32 But we've got like a whole bunch of things and when he said there's a supplementary chapter on this
1011. 01:17:36 I'm like, okay, buddy. You're not even get close to
1012. 01:17:39 What needs to be said on this topic?
1013. 01:17:41 Yeah, he said he had two follow-up chapters one is about applying all of this to business
1014. 01:17:47 and one's applying it to
1015. 01:17:49 Parenting I've not read them. I understand I get it. I understand why he
1016. 01:17:53 Didn't include him. This is already kind of a long book. Yeah. Yeah, I think it would have been too much
1017. 01:17:58 So I I get it, you know, if you want extracurricular
1018. 01:18:02 That that would be the place to go, which I think I'll probably do I just am not there yet. But sure yeah
1019. 01:18:07 The other thing I wanted to touch on here though and maybe there's a rant here is
1020. 01:18:12 James's view on the role of jeans jeans meaning like genetics not blue jeans correct
1021. 01:18:19 Yeah, he says that the secret to success is choosing the right field to compete in
1022. 01:18:23 He says they do not determine your destiny, but jeans do determine your area of opportunity
1023. 01:18:29 I'm not sure I agree with this
1024. 01:18:33 He uses a physical example related to sports, which is kind of hard to argue with
1025. 01:18:38 he says that
1026. 01:18:40 Michael Phelps is kind of uniquely designed to be a
1027. 01:18:43 Really good swimmer and he uses another example of a guy who was a runner who is uniquely
1028. 01:18:47 Designed to be a good runner and if they switch sports they probably wouldn't be able to be as successful as they are
1029. 01:18:53 In their sports because of their physiology
1030. 01:18:56 but I feel like that's a
1031. 01:18:58 That's the easy example
1032. 01:19:01 That's the one you can't really argue with
1033. 01:19:03 What do you say about any other area like the poulger sisters?
1034. 01:19:07 Which he talks about in here where the kids were were groomed to be chess champions and they were all really really successful
1035. 01:19:13 grandmasters and stuff like
1036. 01:19:15 I don't know. I think that
1037. 01:19:18 It's it's bigger than just what you're physically able to do
1038. 01:19:23 I think you can
1039. 01:19:26 change
1040. 01:19:27 Your physiology to a certain degree neuroplasticity like you can change your brain
1041. 01:19:32 And I don't know the extent to which that is possible
1042. 01:19:36 But when you listen to this last section
1043. 01:19:40 Kind of the takeaway is figure out what you like to do
1044. 01:19:44 But feels like work to other people like that alone like I don't really like that
1045. 01:19:48 I think that the what you like to do
1046. 01:19:51 uh has
1047. 01:19:54 very little
1048. 01:19:55 It should should have very little influence in what you actually choose to do
1049. 01:19:58 I my book I talk about the the root of the word passion being the latin word petee
1050. 01:20:03 And it's not something that's fun, but it's petee literally means to suffer
1051. 01:20:07 So your passion is not something you like to do your passion is something that you're willing to suffer to see come about
1052. 01:20:12 What makes me lose track of time
1053. 01:20:15 Where do I get greater returns than you average person what comes naturally to me
1054. 01:20:18 A lot of this stuff if you were to answer these questions
1055. 01:20:20 playing video games
1056. 01:20:23 Like that's kind of
1057. 01:20:25 So I think they can probably provide some
1058. 01:20:28 Refinement of your vision or your purpose in the right context, but I think it's dangerous to apply it
1059. 01:20:34 To apply just this I feel like there's a lot more
1060. 01:20:38 To this and I think that even the advice at the very beginning of choosing the right field to compete in
1061. 01:20:44 That could cause people to limit themselves so much that they really don't identify the thing that really is the thing for them
1062. 01:20:53 Myself as an example, okay, so when I started working with Asian efficiency
1063. 01:20:58 I was writing but prior to that I didn't consider myself a writer then I started creating
1064. 01:21:03 Courses like videos screencasting, but I didn't consider myself a screencaster
1065. 01:21:08 Then I was started podcasting but I didn't consider myself a podcaster
1066. 01:21:12 Then I started public speaking
1067. 01:21:14 I mean if you trace this all the way back if I would have followed james's advice
1068. 01:21:18 I would have said you know what I would rather
1069. 01:21:22 suffer death by sharks than getting up in front of somebody live and talking to them, but
1070. 01:21:27 Now that's one of the things that's most fulfilling for me
1071. 01:21:30 But I never would have been able to get to that point if I would have said
1072. 01:21:34 You know, I guess this is something that doesn't feel like fun to me
1073. 01:21:38 It doesn't make me lose track of my time. I don't get greater returns public speaking at the beginning than other people
1074. 01:21:43 I compare myself to the people who do it really well. So I guess this just isn't for me
1075. 01:21:48 I think that's really dangerous, but there is some truth to learning to play a game where the odds are in your favor
1076. 01:21:52 Yeah, I get that. I'm not sure I connect what you're connecting
1077. 01:21:56 uh, like I I get his point on genetics
1078. 01:22:00 and I can't say that that particular area really struck me positively or
1079. 01:22:05 negatives like oh, yeah, some people are you know physically
1080. 01:22:09 better equipped for different areas
1081. 01:22:13 uh or enjoy them more like
1082. 01:22:16 could I
1083. 01:22:18 I'm not a musician by any stretch of the imagination. Could I develop perfect pitch?
1084. 01:22:23 Some people would argue. Yes. Some people would argue. No
1085. 01:22:27 You know, if you follow the neural plasticity
1086. 01:22:30 Process technically you could say yes. Am I ever going to do that?
1087. 01:22:34 Most likely not. I'm never going to take the time to
1088. 01:22:37 Spend the years of constant work in order to do
1089. 01:22:42 The process that I need to do in order to develop perfect pitch. It's not going to happen
1090. 01:22:46 Like that's not something that I'm equipped to do currently
1091. 01:22:50 But I would argue it's not something you want to do and and that's the thing like until you try you don't even really know
1092. 01:22:56 Yeah, but I don't know that that's what he's getting it like what you're talking about is
1093. 01:23:00 Is not what he's referring to you're talking about like the growth mindset and how you can build yourself towards something
1094. 01:23:06 I don't feel like he even attempted to say
1095. 01:23:09 That that wasn't possible
1096. 01:23:12 Like that wasn't even in the remote stretch of what he was getting at. I don't think well
1097. 01:23:17 I feel like in sports, it's easy to say that person's just not athletic
1098. 01:23:20 But like we've learned about in what book was that peak where the guy became a pga champion?
1099. 01:23:26 Right never played golf before right so there's contrary evidence to that
1100. 01:23:30 but even broader than that
1101. 01:23:33 You can describe this to a lot of different things. I think music is maybe another one where people
1102. 01:23:37 Assume that you're born with this natural ability or you're not
1103. 01:23:42 Is someone like Mozart a product of his environment like the pouljour sisters or is he really gifted in that area?
1104. 01:23:50 sometimes you don't even know but
1105. 01:23:53 I don't know. I guess what I'm arguing
1106. 01:23:57 is that
1107. 01:23:59 You have to start by considering all of the options. You cannot start by looking at
1108. 01:24:05 where am I naturally
1109. 01:24:08 Which way am I naturally leaning?
1110. 01:24:10 Because the right thing for you may be in the opposite direction and I think maybe it takes
1111. 01:24:16 Someone going through a situation where you end up completely changing what you were doing and you find something more rewarding
1112. 01:24:24 before you realize
1113. 01:24:27 How dangerous it can be to just keep doing the the next thing in in the current like climbing the corporate ladder for example
1114. 01:24:34 uh, and maybe that's not the right way to say that but
1115. 01:24:38 I guess the next step is not the logical one all the time. Yeah, I'm not really sure how you're connecting all that but with the
1116. 01:24:45 genetics versus growth mindset like I didn't feel like he was
1117. 01:24:49 arguing those two against each other
1118. 01:24:52 You know, I think he was because it wasn't even a super long
1119. 01:24:56 Section it was just a point that sometimes there are areas where physiology and genetics play a role
1120. 01:25:03 and when they do
1121. 01:25:06 Pick the area that's in your favor like that that was the piece of it that I got out of that not a whole lot
1122. 01:25:11 I don't think we need to belabor it anymore, but you know, that's that's the piece that I I felt like I got out of it
1123. 01:25:17 But I'm not real sure how
1124. 01:25:19 You're seeing the the comparison there, but you know
1125. 01:25:23 Well, he talks about like the personality tests and the five spectrums of behavior, which by the way
1126. 01:25:29 I actually did go through
1127. 01:25:31 the 300 question
1128. 01:25:34 Test before we recorded here today. So he basically is arguing the exact opposite
1129. 01:25:39 Of Gretchen Rubin where if you take one of these valid tests
1130. 01:25:44 They will tell you this is what you should do
1131. 01:25:47 Too funny
1132. 01:25:49 Okay, and I'm saying that I'm kind of in between where Gretchen Rubin isn't going to say that your tendency is going to
1133. 01:25:58 dictate what sort of work you do
1134. 01:26:02 James Clear is saying that it it should at least give you some some clues and and we'll limit the options that are available to you
1135. 01:26:10 I kind of think that there's something in the middle there. So it's good to know how you're wired
1136. 01:26:16 It's good to know the five spectrums of behavior the openness to experience the conscientiousness the extraversion agreeableness and neuroticism
1137. 01:26:23 It's good to know
1138. 01:26:25 Your current abilities in those different areas, but they're not set in stone either
1139. 01:26:30 So again, you can't argue with the physical sports example
1140. 01:26:34 If you have a physical handicap then you're not going to be playing in the mba
1141. 01:26:38 But just because you're tall doesn't mean you are and just because you're short doesn't mean you can't
1142. 01:26:42 Sounds like you just don't like the sports analogy
1143. 01:26:45 Well, I feel like it was the easy one
1144. 01:26:49 I feel like he should have used some other ones to support his points here. Maybe this is you know, tarmac habits 2.0, but yeah, maybe I don't know
1145. 01:26:58 Anyway, it was an interesting like the whole advanced tactics area is is an interesting area
1146. 01:27:03 I think generally what I got out of it was that if you want to improve in a certain area
1147. 01:27:10 Habits are a great way to to start like if you want to get better at doing something building in habits that continually help you to improve in that area
1148. 01:27:19 To me, that's what he was getting at in this whole section. Sure. All right fair enough
1149. 01:27:23 We can we can
1150. 01:27:25 Stop with all that you ready for action items. You got four here. I only have two I do I do so
1151. 01:27:30 Number one is and this is something that I kind of knew I needed to do even before reading this but having read it now
1152. 01:27:36 And he's he's talking about the habit scorecard
1153. 01:27:39 I want to reevaluate all my habits and this is probably something that I should be doing
1154. 01:27:44 Periodically, which is why another action item is to add
1155. 01:27:48 These questions to my personal retreat what habits do I want to add or remove?
1156. 01:27:53 So every quarter I am asking myself these questions
1157. 01:27:56 Another action item I have is to use a habit tracker
1158. 01:28:00 I have an app that I'm probably going to use for this
1159. 01:28:04 But like I said, I'm a little bit nervous about the fact that if I miss a day my streaks are gone
1160. 01:28:08 So I have to figure that out
1161. 01:28:10 And then kind of along the lines even though I just railed on the jeans determining
1162. 01:28:15 What you're going to do another idea in that section is to
1163. 01:28:21 rewrite the rules in your favor. So
1164. 01:28:23 How can you combine your specific skill sets to do something a little bit different than somebody else is doing it
1165. 01:28:30 I'm kind of already doing that with faith-based productivity because
1166. 01:28:34 The I mean I've I've been working in the productivity space
1167. 01:28:38 So I could be you know, just another productivity guy who's talking about journaling and habits and all that stuff
1168. 01:28:44 But I've I've nitched down based on who I am and my my bible college degree and how that influences what I do
1169. 01:28:50 So I guess, you know, I want to continue to apply that thought process to to what I do
1170. 01:28:56 How can I continue to niche down and serve the people that I do serve to the very best of my ability?
1171. 01:29:02 How can I give them exactly what they need and in doing so by combining my specific skill sets?
1172. 01:29:09 You know, how does that how does that change the the terms of engagement?
1173. 01:29:12 How does that rewrite the rules of my favor?
1174. 01:29:14 Just as an example of this because I don't think I'm doing a very good job of explaining it
1175. 01:29:18 He talks about he talks about how he created his own major
1176. 01:29:21 And when he did that he wasn't comparing himself to the people who were in the psychology program or the engineering program or whatever because
1177. 01:29:28 There was nobody else in his program. Yeah, but he graduated with stellar marks and he's doing, you know, his thing now
1178. 01:29:35 And I think that's something that everybody should consider. I want to consider it for myself. Yeah
1179. 01:29:39 Cool
1180. 01:29:41 All right. I expect four topics on the club
1181. 01:29:44 by monday, all right
1182. 01:29:48 I
1183. 01:29:49 I've got to an exercise habit and a journaling habit. I've talked about these throughout this this conversation
1184. 01:29:55 I need to figure out what the exercise habit is before I can start trying to implement it
1185. 01:30:00 But I'm going to be working on the journaling piece tonight. Like I I have the notebook is sitting right beside me
1186. 01:30:05 So we're done recording here. I'm going to grab my pen and set it on top. I might make it easy nice
1187. 01:30:09 So that's that's what I know. All right
1188. 01:30:11 Talk to me about style and rating. All right. Well, James clear has a phenomenal style
1189. 01:30:17 in fact
1190. 01:30:18 I don't think this is just a personal preference thing
1191. 01:30:21 When I was listening to it or started listening to it the audible version
1192. 01:30:25 We were actually driving back from dork county and I was listening to it my wife
1193. 01:30:30 I just started she's like, what are you listening to atomic habits by james clear?
1194. 01:30:33 Oh, I want to listen to it. So we did the thing where you share the air pods
1195. 01:30:36 and
1196. 01:30:37 More than once on the drive home. She like
1197. 01:30:40 Hits me and then looks at me with her mouth open like oh my gosh
1198. 01:30:44 This is amazing. And then a couple times she's like, I really like this guy
1199. 01:30:48 Just his whole his whole style and the content that's in this book is
1200. 01:30:52 Phenomenal like I said at the beginning
1201. 01:30:54 It's a result of everything that he's gone through and everything that he's learned
1202. 01:30:58 This is not something that he's like, okay
1203. 01:31:01 I'm gonna sign a contract and I'm gonna now go into the process of writing this book
1204. 01:31:05 He's been blogging about this stuff for years
1205. 01:31:08 Yeah, and that really comes through he knows his stuff
1206. 01:31:11 So even though I nitpick the the gene stuff at the at the end
1207. 01:31:16 I absolutely love this book. I gifted I think four copies of this last Christmas
1208. 01:31:21 It should not be a surprise that I'm giving this five stars. Nice
1209. 01:31:25 Yeah, I have followed james for a long time very long time
1210. 01:31:30 And have always loved his writing
1211. 01:31:32 It's been a while my since we've had a book that I had a hard time
1212. 01:31:37 Like it's dinner time
1213. 01:31:42 Okay, put the book down. It'll be okay. Like it's been a while since I've had one that's gripped me quite that much
1214. 01:31:47 James does a fantastic job at doing that
1215. 01:31:51 It is not a meandering journey. I think people know by now. Those are not the style of book that I like
1216. 01:31:58 I like dense books. They have a lot of information in them
1217. 01:32:01 That are kind of fast-paced. So this ticks all those boxes
1218. 01:32:05 It's pretty easy to give this a five. I'm I'm with you there
1219. 01:32:09 So we'll give it the double five on this because like I feel like this is one that
1220. 01:32:13 It's one of those that you could use is like a gateway self-help book
1221. 01:32:18 Like it's it could be a gateway productivity book
1222. 01:32:20 It could be like the one that you get started on
1223. 01:32:23 But it's also written in such a way that people who have been around it for a very long time come out with tons of
1224. 01:32:29 Takeaways from it. So yep
1225. 01:32:32 Definitely a pickup book like go for it. Definitely recommended
1226. 01:32:37 Yeah, you mentioned you don't like the meandering journeys
1227. 01:32:39 This book is definitely not that the podcast maybe is
1228. 01:32:43 So don't judge the content of the book based on this episode of bookworm
1229. 01:32:48 Yeah, we like the meandering conversations. Yeah
1230. 01:32:52 All right, with that said we'll put atomic habits on the shelf. What's next time Mike?
1231. 01:32:57 All right next one is my pick and that is digital minimalism by cal Newport
1232. 01:33:02 We've alluded to it a couple times already
1233. 01:33:04 This is going to be a good one and I think it's going to challenge me. Yeah, I think there's there's a lot of hype around it
1234. 01:33:09 So there's I have some pretty high expectations so far
1235. 01:33:13 It's on pace
1236. 01:33:16 I'm not going to say it's exceeding my expectations. It's about what I wanted it. So anyway, no more on that
1237. 01:33:21 uh
1238. 01:33:22 One of the books that's in that's mentioned in the first chapter of that is drunk tank pink by adam atler
1239. 01:33:29 And the description that he gave for it and then I looked it up a little
1240. 01:33:32 I was struggling to nail down a book for this like I was reading some of the description on it
1241. 01:33:37 It's like that'll be a very interesting conversation to have so drunk tank pink by adam atler
1242. 01:33:42 I'm gonna leave it at that but it'll be an interesting book. Yeah, I was definitely curious when you mentioned that before we started recording
1243. 01:33:50 I like the title too. Yeah
1244. 01:33:53 For gapbooks. I am still reading leadership by john maxwell
1245. 01:33:58 This book is rocking my world and uh, it's just really dense taking tons of notes
1246. 01:34:04 And it's taking me a little while to get through it. Yeah, I actually have a gapbook this time
1247. 01:34:08 I just finished it
1248. 01:34:10 Day ago a couple days ago. No yesterday
1249. 01:34:12 Uh, it doesn't have to be crazy at work by jason free ad and david hyenomire hanson dhh
1250. 01:34:18 Uh, these are the guys behind base camp
1251. 01:34:20 And they talk about how they built their business and how they go about building a calm
1252. 01:34:26 company
1253. 01:34:27 And the primary reason I picked it up was because i'm still building a company pro course
1254. 01:34:32 So like I wanted to use that as a base to help me put a mindset around how to build that
1255. 01:34:37 Love the book again. That's another one that I had a hard time putting down
1256. 01:34:41 So
1257. 01:34:42 Definitely highly recommend that one if you're anywhere near leadership of a company at all must read in that scenario
1258. 01:34:49 Yeah, I've read that one. It's it is very good and uh like a lot of their their books
1259. 01:34:55 And their chapters are really short. So it it's uh, it's a page turner. Yep for sure
1260. 01:35:00 All right, if you want to recommend a book
1261. 01:35:04 Please do so over at the bookworm club and also make sure to vote for it so that it gets near the top
1262. 01:35:10 Uh, I've picked digital minimalism joe picked another one based off of digital minimalism
1263. 01:35:15 But my plan after that is to go look at the the votes again
1264. 01:35:18 Uh, i've got a couple that i'm considering that are pretty high vote getters
1265. 01:35:22 So if you want to cast your vote for the next book that we're going to cover it now is a great time to do that
1266. 01:35:27 You can also get a list of all of the books that we've covered and all the plan books by going to bookworm.fm/list
1267. 01:35:35 Yeah, I was looking through when I was turning the old down what book I wanted to pick today
1268. 01:35:39 I was looking through some of the recommendations and there's one
1269. 01:35:42 On there. I wanted a call-out. It's called stand firm by sphind brinkman
1270. 01:35:48 Like the tagline on it is resisting the self-improvement craze which I told mike before a hand like that's like anti bookworm
1271. 01:35:56 like
1272. 01:35:58 That one might be rantworthy like that would be a very interesting one to do I didn't pick it
1273. 01:36:02 But if you guys really want us to go vote for it. Yep, so any anyway interesting tidbit there
1274. 01:36:08 uh ways to help out the show and
1275. 01:36:11 Promote the show uh iTunes reviews, you know as you would expect go on iTunes link in the show notes
1276. 01:36:17 Go leave us a review. We love those. We read them all the time. It's amazing. Thank you
1277. 01:36:22 Join the club club.bookworm.fm
1278. 01:36:24 And part of that is I'm going to be creating an area for action items. We're going to be posting our action items there
1279. 01:36:31 Join in, you know
1280. 01:36:33 Keep us accountable if you need accountability you post yours
1281. 01:36:36 We'll we'll try our best to interact with that as much as we can
1282. 01:36:39 We'll create a formal place for those uh on the club. So yes club.bookworm.fm
1283. 01:36:46 All right, so that's it for atomic habits and if you're reading along with us
1284. 01:36:50 Pick up digital minimalism by cal Newport. We'll be going through that one in a couple weeks. See you next time