Order of Man - Building Atomic Habits

00:00:00.000 Every man knows that building effective and productive habits and systems is a crucial part

00:00:04.580 of teeing him up for success, but knowing something and doing something are two different

00:00:10.880 things. Uh, and it seems to me that most men fail to bridge the gap between the two because they

00:00:15.760 don't know how to build those habits into their lives. And that's why I'm stoked to bring you

00:00:21.180 into the conversation that James clear, the author of atomic habits. And I had about this subject

00:00:26.320 today. We discuss why you should focus more about and on systems and processes rather than goals.

00:00:33.060 Uh, the power of changing your identity over changing your habits, an interesting take on

00:00:38.960 discipline, uh, willpower and self-control that you probably haven't heard of before and focusing

00:00:44.440 on the fundamental unit of progress and ultimate success. You're a man of action. You live life to

00:00:51.100 the fullest, embrace your fears and boldly charge your own path. When life knocks you down,

00:00:55.840 you get back up one more time. Every time you are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient,

00:01:03.360 strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day.

00:01:09.540 And after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today?

00:01:15.240 My name is Ryan Mickler and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and the movement that is

00:01:20.520 order of man. You have stumbled upon whether you're here for the first time or have been with us for

00:01:24.940 hundreds and hundreds of episodes. The single greatest source of information available for

00:01:30.460 men. If you are a man, regardless of what age and you have goals and aspirations to step up more fully

00:01:37.440 in, in your, uh, in your home, in your business, in your community, in your life in general, then this

00:01:42.500 is a podcast designed to give you everything that you need to do just that. This is the antithesis of

00:01:49.360 what we see in society as a weakening and softening of men. And it's a call to step up to the plate in

00:01:56.560 ways that we know how, uh, ways that we're designed to do and ultimately ways that we want to do. Uh, and

00:02:02.960 it's my job to give you the tools and resources and conversations and equip you with everything you

00:02:07.700 need to do just that. Uh, so with that, uh, we've got this podcast, your interview show where I am

00:02:14.320 interviewing the world's most successful men today. I have a New York times bestselling author

00:02:17.940 on the podcast. His name is James clear. I'm going to introduce you to him in just a minute.

00:02:22.340 Uh, we've got the ask me anything episode that I do with the one and only Kip Sorensen. Uh, and we

00:02:28.100 are fielding questions from our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council, and also from our Facebook group.

00:02:33.040 And then you get to listen to me on Friday for better or worse. Some of my thoughts and ideas that are

00:02:38.420 bouncing around in my brain. So I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on announcements and

00:02:43.940 getting in the way of our conversation. I do want to share a very, very quick story with you.

00:02:48.080 Uh, you may have heard because you might be following me on social media. Uh, and this is

00:02:52.500 all going to tie in here in, in just a second. But the other day I was outside playing with my kids

00:02:57.780 and we hadn't seen the dogs for a while. So I asked my son, uh, where, where are the dogs? And he says,

00:03:04.020 I haven't seen them for a while. And it probably had been, I don't know, 30 or 40 minutes.

00:03:08.120 And I said, well, where's, did you see him at all? And he said, yeah, I saw him up to that field a

00:03:11.900 while back. And I said, all right, well, we better go look. He was getting a little worried.

00:03:15.080 And so, um, I didn't change my pants or my boots or anything because I thought, well,

00:03:20.080 we'll find the dogs pretty quickly. So my son and I track up there to the upper end of the field

00:03:25.960 in our place and, uh, snow on the ground. And we just couldn't find the dogs. We're calling them,

00:03:30.740 couldn't find them. And we found the trail that they were on. And long story short, we started

00:03:36.220 following the trail and we walked for, I would say 25, 30, 35 minutes or so, uh, that trail and

00:03:42.640 followed it. It was, it was evident that the dogs were chasing something, probably a deer or a coyote

00:03:48.420 or some other creature or critter. Anyways, we, we followed this trail, uh, for in the snow for

00:03:54.640 about 25, 30, 35 minutes or so, and finally found the dogs. And, uh, he was happy and relieved and he

00:04:01.180 was getting a little upset about it, but we found them and all was well, no big deal. And brought the

00:04:05.120 dogs home, got them in the house and dried off and cleaned up and everything was good.

00:04:09.600 All right. The reason I share this with you is because as I got home, I was very, very surprised

00:04:13.780 because I pulled my boots off and my feet, even walking around in the snow in boots that were not

00:04:20.380 designed for the snow. Um, my feet were dry and completely warm, which is pretty, uh, pretty telling

00:04:28.700 of the boots that I was wearing. And the reason I share this with you is because we've got our show

00:04:32.520 sponsors and of course, friends with origin Maine. And they came out with a boot line maybe

00:04:37.560 three months ago, maybe not even that long ago. Uh, I've got the American made American

00:04:42.200 sourced bison boots by origin, uh, on. And I did during that little, that little outing,

00:04:47.360 that little trek through the snow. And I got to tell you, these things are awesome. Probably

00:04:50.920 the best boots that I've ever had. So if you're looking for a hearty pair of boots, that's going

00:04:56.400 to keep your feet dry and warm. Then I would suggest origin. You can head to origin, Maine

00:05:02.860 as in the state, Maine origin, Maine.com and check them out. Uh, I have again, the bison

00:05:07.480 boots, but they've got, I don't know, all kinds of different styles and different iterations.

00:05:11.500 And you can piece different parts together to make a boot that you, that you like and

00:05:14.740 want, uh, and then use the code order or D E R at checkout. And you'll get a discount

00:05:19.600 on your boots and there are other apparel and gear as well. Again, origin, Maine use

00:05:25.040 the code order, and then you'll have some bad-ass boots that will keep your feet warm

00:05:29.960 and dry as well. All right, guys, that's it by way of announcements. Let me introduce

00:05:33.440 you to James. A lot of you guys probably already know who he is and have been following him

00:05:36.660 for, for some time now. Um, he's been covering the topics of habits and systems and goals and

00:05:43.040 processes for a very long time. And last year, I think it was about 12, 13 months ago, he

00:05:48.360 wrote a book called and titled atomic habits. Now, many of you probably read it. Uh, and

00:05:53.940 at the time we, we weren't able to schedule a podcast. I can't really remember why, but

00:05:58.000 I'm honored that we were able to have him on the podcast. Now, uh, he's the creator of

00:06:02.100 the habits Academy. He's a weightlifter, a former baseball player, a photographer, and

00:06:07.520 of course, add New York times, bestselling author to the resume. Uh, he's been focusing

00:06:12.500 on biology and neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, all of this to help you.

00:06:18.360 Men become more successful on their own individual paths. So guys, I'm really excited about this

00:06:23.840 conversation. I've been looking forward to getting it out to you here for the last couple

00:06:26.660 of weeks. And I know, I know for a fact that you're going to enjoy this and get a ton of

00:06:31.740 value, uh, from it as well. So enjoy James. What's up, man. Glad to have you on the podcast.

00:06:38.500 Hey, good to talk to you. Thank you for having me. Yeah. It's been a year in the works now.

00:06:42.560 I know we couldn't make it work about a year ago when the book came out, but I thought, man,

00:06:45.900 it's a perfect time to revisit it, especially as we come up on the new year and people are

00:06:49.100 going to start thinking about goals and bettering their life. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Very relevant

00:06:54.600 time. And, uh, I'm excited to chat about it in detail as well. I'm glad that you, uh, have had

00:06:58.800 a chance to read the book and enjoyed it. And, um, yeah, just appreciate you taking the time.

00:07:02.420 You bet, man. Yeah. I've actually gone through it twice. I told you, uh, right when it came out,

00:07:05.880 I read the book and then we, uh, are using this book as the book of the month in our iron council.

00:07:11.980 Uh, so I listened to the audio version, which I liked the audio version too, because it was you

00:07:16.680 and anytime the author is the one reading it, there's little nuances in the voice that you

00:07:22.260 pick up that you can tell, okay, this is, this isn't just some actor just going through the words.

00:07:26.400 This is somebody who deeply cares about the work he's doing. Yeah. I, uh, that was part of the

00:07:31.140 contract when we started. I knew I wanted to read it from the start, uh, mostly for the reasons you

00:07:35.400 just mentioned, you know, like you're going to emphasize different areas than maybe a voice actor

00:07:40.160 would, even if, you know, they may be more professional and polished. Uh, I kind of wanted

00:07:44.460 like the, um, I don't know, just the emotion of the personality or the emphasis to be in the places

00:07:49.560 that, you know, that felt right to me. Um, yeah, I also read the book out loud to myself a lot when

00:07:54.500 I was writing it. So I feel like I, I feel like I did the audio book about 10 times than just the

00:07:58.980 last one was the one that was recorded. Um, but, uh, but yeah, anyway, it was fun to do all those

00:08:03.120 different formats. How long did it take you to do the audio, the recording, the reading of it?

00:08:07.600 Um, it was about three days. They did a really nice job. I, so Penguin Random House published the

00:08:12.800 book and they have, their audio team has like a group of recording studios that they work with

00:08:17.400 for a lot of these. And, um, so I had help in the sense that I had like a professional sound

00:08:22.720 engineer and there was even, he wasn't like a voice coach, but he was like, um, if we needed to look up

00:08:28.900 how to pronounce somebody's name or if we needed to look up, um, I don't know, just like different

00:08:34.340 things like that, he would like coach me along a little bit. And so that helped. Um, and then,

00:08:39.300 uh, you know, all they really need is one clean read through of each passage and then they'll piece

00:08:43.940 it all together so that it sounds great at the end. And, um, I think they did a really nice job.

00:08:48.540 Uh, took me a little while to get the pacing, right. We had to redo the first chapter once I

00:08:52.940 had gotten through everything. Cause I went, I went way too fast, uh, the first time around,

00:08:56.900 but, uh, but yeah, anyway, it was, it was good. It was, uh, it was a fun thing to do. I'm glad I

00:09:01.820 did it. Yeah. That's, that was the same similar process for when I did the, uh, audio version of

00:09:07.260 my book is I sent in, I don't know, I must've sent in two or three chapters to our engineer and he's

00:09:12.620 like, yeah, you're just talking way too fast. You got to slow it down, which was really awkward to

00:09:16.560 slow it down. Cause I get excited, you know, I talk fast cause I'm excited about it. So I know I felt

00:09:21.320 like I was like a robot or something. The first reading atomic habits was like tiny changes,

00:09:26.580 remarkable results. Nobody talks like that. You just need to, you know, it just, yeah. Um,

00:09:32.540 but we ended up getting there. Well, the reason I liked the book, I mean, among others, there's a

00:09:37.000 lot of reasons, but I, I, I liked the idea of atomic habits, which obviously we're talking about

00:09:43.220 small habits. Cause I think what a lot of people believe is that these have to be big, grandiose

00:09:49.180 goals and objectives and changes in our lives to create meaningful, meaningful change. But the

00:09:55.320 problem that I see with that is that if it's so large, uh, it keeps a lot of people from

00:10:00.820 starting, uh, because it's intimidating or they can't do it to the degree that they think

00:10:05.880 they should. So they don't even start. And that's why I like the idea of atomic habits.

00:10:09.960 Yeah. Thanks. I chose the phrase atomic habits for three reasons. Uh, the first one is the one

00:10:15.120 that you mentioned, you know, like the first meaning of the word atomic is tiny or small, like an

00:10:18.780 atom. And I do think habits should be small and easy to do. The second meaning is the one

00:10:24.200 that's like overlooked the most, which is, uh, the word atomic can also mean the fundamental

00:10:28.680 unit in a larger system, like atoms built into molecules, molecules built into compounds and so

00:10:33.680 on. And if you really think about your habits like that, they kind of are like the little units of

00:10:38.920 your daily routine. You know, there are these little patterns that you do and you put them all

00:10:41.800 together and you end up with the system of your, your normal day. And then the third and final

00:10:47.000 meaning is the source of immense energy or power. And I think if you understand all three of

00:10:52.120 those, you kind of see, you certainly understand the title and maybe see the narrative arc of the

00:10:55.740 book, which is if you start with changes that are small and easy to do 1% better each day,

00:11:01.620 and then you layer them on top of each other, like units in a larger system, then you can end up with

00:11:06.340 some really powerful and remarkable results. But you kind of need all of those things working

00:11:10.000 together. You know, it's not just like, we all know people who do like one small thing and it's

00:11:14.600 just kind of frivolous and then like their life doesn't change. So the, I mean, I think I say

00:11:18.640 this in the conclusion of the book that the Holy grail of habit change is not a single 1%

00:11:23.900 improvement. It's like a thousand of them. Uh, and you just take these small things that are

00:11:28.000 easy to do that don't overwhelm you, that you can remain consistent on and build into your normal

00:11:32.800 routine. And then you put them together and you can be surprised by how powerful that system can be

00:11:38.700 in the long run. Yeah. You, uh, you had mentioned Scott Adams, uh, in your book and we actually just

00:11:44.600 had him on the podcast, I think it was last week or two weeks ago. And he talked about this in his,

00:11:49.640 in his new book, loser think what he suggested is that, uh, you know, in order to be successful,

00:11:54.500 it isn't just a, a one variable equation, right? There's so many different variables that go into

00:12:00.460 it. And so what a lot of people will do is say, Oh, that guy's successful because, uh, he can write

00:12:05.120 really well. Well, that's part of the formula, but there's other things like he's, he's disciplined,

00:12:11.220 he's passionate about what he does. He spent countless hours researching. So there's a lot

00:12:16.380 that goes into the equation that I think a lot of times just gets overlooked. Yeah, there, this is,

00:12:21.520 I think a, a deep truth, uh, perhaps about life, which is that success is rarely the result of one

00:12:28.080 thing, but failure can be. So, you know, if you, um, if you don't get good sleep, if you only slept two

00:12:34.600 hours last night, well, that can be the reason why you don't perform well today. So it can just be that

00:12:40.340 one thing, but sleeping well each night does not automatically make you successful, right? It

00:12:45.020 might be one thing that's part of the equation of success, but it doesn't, it doesn't instantly

00:12:49.800 deliver better results. And so for things to go well, you kind of need, I like this. There's this

00:12:54.820 complexity scientist named Joe Norman. He has this phrase, uh, multitudinous harmony. And you sort of

00:13:00.460 need that. You need a lot of things working in harmony in order to become successful in a given

00:13:05.380 field. And, uh, what any one of those things not working or being, uh, could be a point of failure.

00:13:11.720 And, um, I think that actually tells us a lot about how complex systems work. You know, you kind of need

00:13:17.100 a lot of things working together, but it also tells you a little bit about what your strategy can be

00:13:21.820 like. You should really try to eliminate any single point of failure. Uh, you should try to have backup

00:13:26.980 plans, redundancies, uh, a margin of safety so that you can handle things when they don't go perfectly

00:13:32.360 well. And, um, that actually bleeds well into the strategies for building good habits, because

00:13:39.420 this I think is another reason why I can helpful to focus on a small habit to begin with. You know,

00:13:45.520 one question to ask yourself is like, what is the habit that I can perform 98% of the time without

00:13:50.820 fail, no matter what the conditions. And if I can't do it, if I have to say, no, this happens too big for

00:13:55.620 me to be able to do that, then it's probably too big at the start. Now that doesn't mean you can't scale

00:13:59.520 up to that, but if you can't do it on the bad days, then it's hard for it to remain something

00:14:05.660 that's stable and reliable over time. And, uh, that comes back to that idea of having a margin

00:14:10.120 of safety and being able to kind of handle the chaos or the, um, uncertainty that life throws at

00:14:15.040 you. Well, I mean, not, not only that, but if you can't compound the results, I think that becomes a

00:14:20.840 problem as well, especially when we're talking about small habits, you know, if we use the analogy

00:14:24.720 of baseball, which I know you played baseball, uh, you know, hitting a home run has, has great

00:14:30.740 immediate results, but getting on base and hitting a single or walking or whatever, you know, that

00:14:36.140 takes a little bit more effort compounded over and over again. Uh, so I think a lot of people will

00:14:42.280 have a tendency of leaning towards the home run or the grand slam because they see the immediate

00:14:47.740 impact of it versus some of the best hitters in baseball, Ted Williams, Tony Gwynn. These are guys

00:14:52.940 that get on base every time they're up to bat. And these are the, these are the great hitters

00:14:56.600 that we remember the guys who were successful. Yeah. I think, um, maybe this has been exacerbated

00:15:03.040 or like multiplied by the effect of social media and the internet in general, but we live in a very

00:15:07.600 results oriented society. Um, and I think part of that is things only become newsworthy or

00:15:13.980 conversation worthy. Typically when they are a result, you hear about the book. Once it becomes a

00:15:19.020 bestseller, you hear about the Broadway show. Once it becomes a hit, um, you're never going to see a

00:15:23.640 news story that is like man eats chicken and salad for lunch today, right? It's like, it's only a news

00:15:29.300 story. Once man loses a hundred pounds, that's when it becomes worthy of talking about. And I think

00:15:35.120 because of that, because we see results all day long in the news cycle on social media and so on,

00:15:41.180 we tend to overvalue the result. We tend to think that's the thing that really matters because it's the

00:15:46.520 thing that's always in our face. But the truth is many of your results in life. And certainly I should

00:15:52.460 say just before I say this, obviously luck, randomness, uncertainty play a role in life,

00:15:58.100 but so do your habits and your habits are the only part of that equation that's under your control.

00:16:03.880 And like the only reasonable thing that makes sense to focus on is the pieces that you can control.

00:16:08.940 And so for, in that sense, most of your results in life, most of the things we so badly want that we so

00:16:15.500 often see on the screen and on the news are a lagging measure of your habits. You know, like

00:16:21.600 your knowledge is a lagging measure of your reading and learning habits. Your bank account is a lagging

00:16:27.800 measure of your financial habits. Your physical fitness is a lagging measure of your training and

00:16:33.540 eating habits. Even like the clutter in your bedroom is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits,

00:16:38.140 you know? And so for almost any field of life, the outcomes that you have now are the natural

00:16:44.480 result of the habits and systems that preceded them. And this is the reason I mentioned Scott

00:16:50.280 Adams in the book is because he was the first person I heard talk about this difference between

00:16:53.840 systems and goals. And it's been covered by many people. There's a great book from like 30 years

00:16:58.900 ago called The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh, who won three Super Bowls, the 49ers.

00:17:04.040 And he yeah, he basically says in that book, like the goal for any team is to have the best score on the

00:17:10.020 scoreboard at the end of the game. But if you spent the whole game looking at the scoreboard,

00:17:14.080 that would be totally useless, right? You would lose every game. But if instead you focused only

00:17:18.480 on your system, only on the way you practice, the way you recruit, the way you execute the plays,

00:17:22.860 well, you actually win a lot of games that way. The scoreboard would take care of itself.

00:17:26.820 And life is often like that. The results that we also badly want will take care of themselves

00:17:32.260 if you optimize the habits in the system that comes before them.

00:17:36.200 Well, you know, the other thing that's interesting about focusing on the systems, at least in my life,

00:17:40.360 and I think you'd probably attest to this as well, is if you're so heavily focused on the scoreboard,

00:17:45.280 then the the ends may justify the means and the means may not have been productive and other

00:17:52.700 facets of your life. But if you focus on the means, not only you're going to produce the results you

00:17:56.800 desire, but you're probably going to produce a lot of beneficial unintended results as well,

00:18:01.140 just by the nature of you improving your habits and it corresponding and correlating with other

00:18:06.420 avenues of your life. Yeah, that's a great point. You know, and everybody has different ethical and

00:18:11.560 moral standards and so on. But if I look back on a lot of the dumb mistakes that I've made running

00:18:15.720 my business over the last decade or so, almost all of them are related to chasing the result too soon

00:18:20.760 and not focusing on the means of the process. You know, if I just would have been patient,

00:18:25.360 then it would have been I probably would have got there without as nearly as much struggle or

00:18:30.640 heartache or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And I think the trap is that we don't see the immediate result.

00:18:39.680 This is probably why I think so many people struggle with with the habits is because if it's a if it's

00:18:45.080 something if it's if it's destructive, for example, you'll see it immediately. Like if you eat the wrong

00:18:51.020 foods, like your stomach's gonna hurt, you're gonna see it on the scale almost instantaneously. But if you

00:18:55.360 eat that, you know, chicken salad, you were talking about earlier, the positive results take so much

00:19:00.980 longer to produce than the negative ones. It seems like it's yeah, this is cruel for sure.

00:19:06.880 This is I think, like a really important point to focus on because I think it explains why bad habits

00:19:12.460 form so readily and so easily. And why good habits can be such a challenge to build. And basically,

00:19:19.300 you can think of any behavior as producing multiple outcomes across time. So like the let's just

00:19:25.660 broadly say there's an immediate outcome and an ultimate outcome. And for most of your bad habits,

00:19:31.980 the immediate outcome is actually pretty favorable. Like the immediate outcome of eating a donut is

00:19:36.440 it's sweet, sugary, it's tasty, it's enjoyable. It's only the ultimate outcome. If you keep doing

00:19:41.440 that for two months or six months or a year, that's unfavorable. Same thing even with something like

00:19:46.660 smoking a cigarette, like the immediate outcome of smoking a cigarette for a lot of people is I get

00:19:50.620 socialized with my co workers outside the office, or I curb my nicotine craving or reduce stress in

00:19:56.860 the moment. It's only the ultimate outcome that is unfavorable. But with good habits, it's often the

00:20:02.520 reverse. You know, the immediate outcome of like going to the gym, like my dad likes to swim. When he gets

00:20:09.180 out of the water after workout, his body looks exactly the same, right? There's no visible change from

00:20:14.500 doing the habit. There's nothing to see. He's just tired. That's all there is. Yeah. If anything,

00:20:19.080 the benefit, the immediate outcome of working out for like a week is you're sore, you know,

00:20:23.260 and like my body hasn't changed, the scale hasn't moved. So it's mostly cost up front.

00:20:27.880 And then it's only the ultimate outcome of working out for a year or two or three that you get these

00:20:33.080 accumulated results that you were hoping for. And there, so there's kind of like this valley of death

00:20:38.460 in the beginning of building any habit where early on you're showing up and putting the work in,

00:20:43.000 but you don't have anything to show for it. And I hear this a lot from readers. They'll say things

00:20:48.320 like, you know, I've been running for a month. Why can't I see a change in my body? Or I've been

00:20:53.000 working on this novel for six months now and the outline is still a mess. You know, it's like this

00:20:57.300 is ever going to fix itself. And I like to think about, um, there's this quote from the San Antonio

00:21:04.320 Spurs that won five championships in the NBA. They got this quote hanging in their locker room where it

00:21:09.140 says something to the effect of whenever I feel like giving up, I think about the stone cutter

00:21:13.520 who takes his hammer and bangs on the rock a hundred times without showing a crack. And then

00:21:18.520 at the hundred and first blow it splits in two. And I know that it wasn't the hundred and first that did

00:21:23.140 it, but all the hundred that came before. And that's the same kind of message, same kind of philosophy

00:21:28.460 that you need to take with your habits. These 1% changes, these daily actions there, they don't look

00:21:33.780 like much. In many cases, they seem insignificant in the moment, but it's not the last workout that

00:21:39.340 makes your body fit. It's all the hundred that came before. It's not the last sentence you write

00:21:43.640 that finishes the novel. It's all the hundred that came before. It's not the last meditation session that

00:21:47.780 you do that brings you peace and stress and calm or reduces stress and brings you calm. It's all the

00:21:53.960 hundred that came before, right? It's like this commitment to showing up, swinging the hammer,

00:22:01.220 banging on the rock and knowing that that's still worth it, even though the results are delayed.

00:22:06.620 And that's what I call in the, in atomic habits, I refer to this, the plateau of latent potential.

00:22:10.700 You know, you're, you're building up this latent potential and it's the work is not being wasted.

00:22:14.620 It's just being stored and you need to continue to show up to let it release. Um, and that patience

00:22:21.380 and willingness to stick with that process, that, that, that's one of the hardest parts about

00:22:26.080 building new habits. Yeah. You actually alluded to this and talked about it towards,

00:22:30.180 I think the end of the book, when you're talking about, can one coin determine whether a man is

00:22:34.220 wealthy? You know, if he has one coin, most people would say, no, that man's not wealthy.

00:22:38.580 But at some point, if I give you another coin and another coin and another coin, at some point,

00:22:43.600 you're probably going to say that that individual is wealthy. So at what coin did that individual

00:22:48.440 become wealthy, right? It's one habit. It's just one additional coin. And somebody says, okay,

00:22:53.140 now he's wealthy or now he's in shape, or now he's a good archer or a great author or whatever your

00:23:00.340 thing is that you're trying to pursue. Right. Yeah. It's like, uh, the difference between the

00:23:06.020 999,000 coin and the millionth coin seems is the same as the difference between zero and one.

00:23:12.100 Yeah. But you hit this phase transition where people are like, oh, now you're a millionaire.

00:23:15.660 Um, and yeah, there's a, there's this, there's a similar quality to a lot of habits that are like

00:23:22.360 that, where you just keep showing up and it's like, nothing happens. And then you turn around

00:23:26.840 one day and you're like shocked by how far you've come. Which I think is the value of your review

00:23:33.220 process as well. Cause I, I, I think there are some people based on their personalities that can be

00:23:39.940 very robotic in nature, that they're completely satisfied with going through the motions and

00:23:45.540 just content that, that it'll work over time. I think most of us probably can only do that for

00:23:52.500 a certain period of time without going back and saying, okay, look how far I've come or, or,

00:23:57.120 or look how far I have yet to go. And maybe that's aspiring to them. So there is value in this review

00:24:01.920 process that you talk about as well. Yeah. I think more broadly, the principle to think about here is

00:24:07.920 a feedback and measurement, you know, like we perhaps the most motivating feeling to the human mind

00:24:14.820 is the feeling of progress. If you have signals of progress, then you have every reason to continue

00:24:20.700 with what you're doing because you're moving toward what you're hoping to achieve. And so

00:24:25.200 measurement and feedback become a really important part of building a habit. And you see this built in

00:24:32.220 to a lot of the, the so-called bad habits that we build, like checking your phone, for example,

00:24:37.160 well, shoot, you get feedback almost every time you check your phone, you know, like you pull it up,

00:24:41.340 you got a new text message, you go to Instagram, you've got notifications and buzzing and likes

00:24:45.560 coming up. Like there's, there are all kinds of feedback mechanisms built into this. Uh, video

00:24:49.840 games are another example. Video games are rife with immediate portions of feedback. You run across

00:24:56.940 a new powerup and there's like a jingle on the screen. You can see your score increasing in the

00:25:01.820 corner. Um, even the like pitter patter of footsteps as you run through a level is immediate feedback that

00:25:07.380 you're making progress. And so, um, the digital world has this stuff built into it all the time.

00:25:13.420 And that's part of the reason why many of those behaviors are habitual or addictive or, uh, and so

00:25:18.720 on. But the physical world feedback doesn't come at that ideal pace. And so the measurement that you

00:25:24.900 choose, I think one, one question you can ask that can help you get like closer to this is what is a form

00:25:31.800 of measurement that more closely matches the frequency of the habit that I need to build. So,

00:25:36.840 um, for example, so I mentioned my dad swimming just a minute ago. So he, if he's using say the

00:25:43.320 scale as his form of measurement, which is what a lot of people do when they're, uh, you know,

00:25:47.760 weight training or strength training or working out, trying to lose weight that the scale becomes

00:25:51.900 the ultimate measure. Well, the problem is you need to work out three or four or five times a week,

00:25:57.440 but the scale only changes say once every two weeks. And so the frequency of the measurement

00:26:02.700 and the frequency of the habit are not aligned. Whereas, um, what my dad does, he gets out of the

00:26:08.260 pool and he pulls out this little pocket calendar and he puts an X on that day. And so this is just

00:26:13.440 a basic form of a habit tracker. And that X is just a small measurement. It's not a big thing,

00:26:18.820 but it does give him a signal of progress that matches the frequency of the habit. Every time he does

00:26:24.380 it, he gets another X. And every time he gets another X, he builds up that streak.

00:26:28.740 And so that little visual cue, that little signal of progress gives him another reason to show up

00:26:33.660 again the next day. Um, and there are all kinds of ways to do this. You know, like in my business,

00:26:38.320 I do a weekly review where every Friday I review revenue and expenses and profit, email subscribers,

00:26:45.280 website visitors, all that kind of stuff. And that's a quick enough feedback loop that if something

00:26:51.060 goes wrong during a given week or something's off, uh, I'll catch it, but it's not so rapid.

00:26:56.280 Like I don't need to be checking that stuff every day. Cause then I'm just wasting time looking at

00:26:59.900 numbers when actually I should be doing work. Um, and so figuring out the right pace for each area

00:27:05.460 of your life requires a little bit of thought, but I do think that in that way, feedback and measurement

00:27:10.020 can be really helpful. With, uh, with your father's example, does checking the box off or a calendar

00:27:16.940 or whatever it is, or some sort of tracker, does somebody get accustomed to that to the point

00:27:22.220 where that's no longer rewarding or even significant to them and they need to change that reward system?

00:27:29.580 That's a great question because there are some kinds of feedback that definitely fall into that

00:27:35.120 category and other kinds that don't. And I'll talk through the difference here for just a minute,

00:27:41.240 but I'm not sure that I fully understand why some are one way and some are another. So for example,

00:27:46.000 um, this is a form of feedback or measurement that I use. So I don't do the X's for my workouts,

00:27:52.360 but I do write down every set that I do in the gym. So I have a little workout journal. And so

00:27:56.180 after each set is completed, I write it down, boom, that's a little bit of feedback. You completed the

00:28:00.700 set now move on to the next one. And, uh, I really enjoy doing that. I've resisted using a phone app to

00:28:07.420 track my workouts. I actually like the physical writing it down for that particular habit. Although of

00:28:11.720 course I use spreadsheets for, you know, business and a bunch of other stuff. Um, so you may

00:28:15.980 have to find the right style for you, but that, so that's an example of one that I have not become

00:28:20.540 bored with, but then I used, uh, my fitness pal to track calories and what I was eating for,

00:28:26.500 for a period of time for a couple of months or something. And unlike every other app on my phone,

00:28:32.240 I was like, all right, I haven't done this. I should download this app. I'm going to turn

00:28:35.120 notifications on. So it reminds me to track them for each meal. And I did that. And I would say

00:28:40.540 probably within 48 hours, I began to ignore all the notifications. It would come up and I would just be

00:28:44.900 like, eh, who cares and move. And, um, and so that's an example of like feedback or measurement

00:28:49.960 or a nudge or a cue, whatever you want to call it that immediately I became desensitized to.

00:28:55.220 And so I'm not sure why the tracking works for my workouts, but it, uh, works less so for

00:29:01.460 my nutrition habits. There's probably something to like, how much do you genuinely care about the

00:29:08.260 progress that you're making? Um, and the truth is I care much more about my training in the gym

00:29:13.320 than I did about tracking the calories. Um, and so that probably plays a role, but it is interesting

00:29:19.040 that sometimes you can find, and maybe this is just, maybe this is the answer that you need to

00:29:24.880 experiment with yourself to find what forms of measurement you do care about, what feedback is

00:29:29.320 useful and interesting to you and use that to drive yourself forward, uh, rather than just doing

00:29:34.960 something because society tells you, Hey, you should be tracking your calories or whatever. Um,

00:29:39.280 and I think a lot of people do that. They, a lot of people use, they live their lives by borrowed

00:29:44.180 goals. They measure themselves by borrowed metrics. And like, just because everybody else is saying

00:29:49.580 that's what you should use. Doesn't mean that's what's right for your situation. There, there's a

00:29:52.820 certain level of self-experimentation that is required to figure your habits out and to optimize

00:29:58.460 your, your performance. I think, I think there's value in that. Uh, if you're looking to other people

00:30:04.920 that you're motivated and inspired by, I think it's a great starting point, right? So if you,

00:30:08.920 it's, it's, it's an inferior way of doing it, maybe it's a lower tier of doing it. So if I,

00:30:13.400 if I want to get in shape, for example, and I'm inspired by you or somebody else that I'm following

00:30:17.540 online, I think that's a great place to start and say, okay, well, what is James tracking? What is

00:30:23.100 this guy tracking? I'm going to do that. But at some point it seems like you ought to level up and say,

00:30:27.840 okay, well, what James is pursuing is slightly different than what I'm pursuing,

00:30:31.400 but at least it's getting you on the path. I think there are two, two thoughts that came to

00:30:38.600 me as you're talking through that first is, uh, human, all humans are wired to imitate.

00:30:42.880 You can't get around it. It's how we survive. It's how you learn language. It's how you learn

00:30:46.520 what to do. Like, why did you learn that you should ring a doorbell when you walk up to a house

00:30:50.240 that nobody ever told you that you just learned that's what you do when you walk into a house.

00:30:53.660 So you imitate what you see other people, the way you see people acting. Um, and all that kind of,

00:30:58.400 that happens like in an endless, almost infinite array of ways throughout life and daily work.

00:31:03.200 So we're wired to imitate. And for that reason, I think, um, questions like what I just said,

00:31:09.220 are you borrowing from somebody else? Or is this right for you? That level of self-awareness is

00:31:14.320 good to revisit because your default is imitation. You're, you're always going to, you're going to do

00:31:18.580 that without having to think about it. So you might as well use self-awareness and questioning

00:31:22.340 as a way to try to balance it out. Um, so I think for in that way, that's, uh, that's useful.

00:31:28.400 Um, I lost the second point. I can't remember what it was, but maybe it'll come back to me.

00:31:34.260 Yeah, I'm sure it will. Yeah. I think, I think there is value. A lot of the times we hear like,

00:31:38.520 don't compare yourself to other people. And, and I understand what people who are saying that are,

00:31:42.340 are, are saying, and I get what you're saying too. But I also think that if I look at somebody who

00:31:47.780 I have aspirations to perform, like, then there's actual value in saying, okay, well,

00:31:53.400 this guy's performing to this standard and as a way of looking at it and seeing what potential

00:31:59.780 there is, uh, in myself. So maybe not comparing myself to his worth necessarily, but to their

00:32:06.800 performance as a metric for what I am potentially capable of as well.

00:32:11.680 Right. And so that reminded me of the second point I was going to make, which is a comparison

00:32:16.380 and imitation can be quite useful. I think if it's kept in the right, uh, frame or within the

00:32:21.680 right scale. So the way that I like to think about it is comparison is like the teacher of skills when

00:32:27.600 you compare narrowly. So compare, uh, how should I do this squat technique? What is their email

00:32:32.580 marketing strategy? Uh, what is the best way to cook a hamburger, grill a steak? That's like a very

00:32:37.920 narrow form of comparison, but comparison will make you miserable. If you compare broadly,

00:32:43.020 what is my marriage like compared to theirs? What does my net worth like compared to theirs?

00:32:47.300 When you start comparing big picture stuff, then it becomes like, I think unhealthy when you compare

00:32:52.800 a technique or approach or strategy, smaller picture stuff, then it can become very useful and

00:32:59.300 insightful. Yeah, that makes sense. I, I wholeheartedly agree with that. Uh, one of the things that we were

00:33:05.360 talking about earlier is, is, you know, what, what, what motivates you? What measure of, of,

00:33:10.300 of, of progress motivates you? I was thinking about it the other day. Cause something I've got

00:33:14.160 into relatively recently past six or seven months now is, is jujitsu. And I found that when I'm done

00:33:21.380 with class, I'm, I'm sore and I'm in pain, but I actually like that. Like, I don't know if I've,

00:33:28.980 I don't know if it's because I'm kind of sick that way and that's just how I made up. Or if I've

00:33:33.920 associated the pain with progress, like, I'm really curious what your thoughts are on that.

00:33:40.300 Yeah. My, uh, my wife and I trained together in the gym and we've, uh, she came up with a phrase,

00:33:45.780 which is good tired. Uh, and so it's like the feeling of laying in bed after a workout and

00:33:51.200 you're just like ready to sleep and you're exhausted, but it's because you worked so hard

00:33:55.080 and, um, versus like, I don't know, some stressed out, tired or something where you,

00:34:00.420 you know, in comparison. And so it's like you, um, it's like you earned your tiredness,

00:34:05.140 you earned your soreness. Uh, and so that, uh, that association of earning it, I think it

00:34:11.940 changes like how you, what, how you value the, that feeling. It changes the meaning that you

00:34:17.220 assigned to it.

00:34:19.140 Gents, I just need to interrupt very, very quickly because I want to let you know that

00:34:23.180 inside of our exclusive brotherhood, the iron council, we're doing a deep dive into the subject

00:34:28.340 of this very conversation habits. Uh, the 500 men, uh, inside of the iron council are uncovering

00:34:35.540 the habits that are working for and against them, uh, creating other systems to ensure that they

00:34:41.460 stick with the good habits and eliminate the bad. And then ultimately holding each other accountable.

00:34:46.980 We've got some systems for accountability to staying on the path. Uh, in fact, many of the

00:34:50.980 practices that James and I have been discussing in this podcast today are the very practices and

00:34:56.920 strategies that we are and have been employing inside the iron council for the past almost four

00:35:02.440 years now. So if you want to learn more and lock in your spot, then head to order of man.com slash

00:35:09.480 iron council. You're going to see all the benefits and everything that we're doing. And then of course,

00:35:13.080 you're going to give yourself access to the systems and the processes to help you incorporate some of

00:35:18.120 the habits and systems and strategies that we've been talking about on this podcast. Again,

00:35:22.440 order of man.com slash iron council. That's your homework after the podcast for now. Let's continue

00:35:28.600 that conversation with James. And, and that's, I think that's a great point too. It changes the

00:35:33.960 meaning. And to me, the meaning doesn't even have to be true. One of the things I was thinking about

00:35:39.000 when, uh, I was, I was listening to your book is years ago. Uh, this is probably 10 years ago. I used

00:35:45.640 to drink monster energy drinks and I drank them to the point where literally I got a twitch

00:35:51.720 in my eye that I just couldn't control. And it was there for weeks. And that's the only thing I

00:35:56.920 could attribute it to. So I told myself that I wanted to be very, very successful in the business

00:36:03.560 and in my financial planning practice at the time I told myself successful financial advisors

00:36:10.280 don't drink monster energy drinks. And whether it's true or not is irrelevant. I think, I don't think

00:36:17.080 the story has to be true, but that story that I created in the meaning I assigned to it worked.

00:36:22.520 And I have not had a monster energy drink since I haven't even thought about it or had a desire to,

00:36:28.840 you know, um, I, I talk about this in chapter two, this idea of identity based habits. Once your

00:36:34.440 identity, the internal narrative that you have becomes tied to a behavior. Um, it becomes much easier

00:36:40.920 to either avoid or stick with that behavior. So in your case, look, I really want to be a successful

00:36:45.560 financial planner and successful financial planners do not drink monster. Um, that becomes much easier

00:36:51.160 to avoid once you have that narrative, uh, instilled once you, once you adopt that identity. And, um,

00:36:58.360 sometimes that can happen through, uh, like an epiphany, kind of like what you had where it was just

00:37:03.240 like this moment. Um, you can also imagine someone like reading a book and that gives them some kind of

00:37:08.200 insight where they're like, uh, this happens a lot with diet books, whether, whether it's healthy or

00:37:12.280 true again, whether it's true or not. Um, you know, somebody might make toast every morning for

00:37:16.840 breakfast and then they read a diet book that convinces them that like carbs and grain are the

00:37:20.920 devil. And then they walk down to the kitchen the next morning and they see the loaf of bread.

00:37:25.080 But this time, instead of thinking I should make toast, they think I need to throw that out. Like,

00:37:29.400 I don't want that. So it's suddenly the mindset changes their behavior. Um, but I think the more

00:37:35.800 common way, cause those, you know, those types of insights or changes probably happen rarely,

00:37:40.120 I don't know, once a decade, maybe, maybe once every year at the most. But, um, I think the more

00:37:45.320 typical way that our identity gets linked to our behavior is through the accumulation of small

00:37:50.600 habits and the evidence that those habits provide. So like one way to think about this is that your

00:37:56.200 habits provide, your habits are how you embody a particular identity, right? Like, uh, every morning

00:38:01.880 that you make your bed, you embody the identity of someone who is clean and organized, or every

00:38:07.240 morning that you study biology for 20 minutes, you embody the identity of someone who is studious.

00:38:12.760 Every time you do one pushup, you embody the identity of someone who doesn't miss workouts.

00:38:17.480 And the first time you do it, it doesn't mean a whole lot, maybe the 10th or the hundredth time

00:38:22.600 you haven't fully adopted it. But every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you want

00:38:28.360 to become. And so the more that you do these small habits, the more you start casting votes

00:38:32.920 and building up this pile of evidence for, Hey, this is who I am. And at some point you turn around

00:38:38.040 and you're like, yeah, I guess I am the kind of person who doesn't miss workouts, or I guess I am

00:38:42.360 studious, I guess I am clean and organized. And, um, so in that way, I think our habits form or forge

00:38:50.040 our internal identity. And that's probably the real reason, the deeper reason that habits actually

00:38:56.280 matter, you know, like we often talk about the mattering because the habits can provide you

00:39:01.080 external results. They can help you get six pack abs or lose weight or reduce stress or double your

00:39:06.520 income. And yeah, it's true. Habits can do all of those things. And that's great. But the real reason

00:39:11.880 that they matter is that they can reshape your sense of self image, you know, like true behavior

00:39:17.000 change is really identity change. Because once you look at yourself in a new way, you're not even

00:39:22.280 really pursuing behavior change anymore. You're just acting in alignment with the type of person

00:39:28.200 you already see yourself to be. You're not, you know, you're, and you hear people say that they're

00:39:31.320 like, um, yeah, I used to have to convince myself to work out, but now I just go to the gym every week

00:39:36.680 because that's part of what I do, you know, or like, Oh, it took a lot of effort to meditate early

00:39:40.280 on, but like now I'm a meditator. And, um, the, the powerful and also the dangerous thing about this

00:39:47.400 is that it's a two way street. It can, it can go either way, you know, like, uh, your identity can

00:39:52.680 either build you up or cut you down. It's like this double edged sword. And so sometimes we latch

00:39:57.640 on to healthy identities. Like I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. I'm the type

00:40:01.720 of person who finishes what I start. I'm a writer, I'm a meditator, whatever. But sometimes we latch

00:40:07.080 on to negative identities. Like I have a sweet tooth or I'm bad at math or I'm terrible with directions,

00:40:12.760 or I can't remember people's names. And these are all stories that we tell ourselves that then

00:40:17.800 our behavior starts to reinforce and back it up. And so I think in the long run, the, what we're

00:40:23.560 really looking to do, and this is maybe like the deeper message behind atomic habits is that if you

00:40:28.840 make these small 1% changes, you make these little improvements and you start to cast votes for being

00:40:33.960 that new kind of person, then you start to realize what the real objective is. You know,

00:40:38.360 the real goal is not to run a marathon. It's to become a runner. The goal is not to like,

00:40:42.520 do a silent meditation retreat. It's to become a meditator and whatever the identity is that you

00:40:47.640 want to build, your habits are the pathway to building up evidence and proving to yourself

00:40:52.360 that, Hey, this is like part of my story now. Yeah. It's a little bit like self-fulfilling

00:40:57.320 prophecy. You know, I hear that one a lot. It's like, I can't remember names. Well,

00:41:00.280 the reason you can't remember people's names is because you've told yourself you can't remember

00:41:03.640 people's names and therefore you don't work on it. The actions that you take support the idea that

00:41:09.640 you can't remember people's names. So you don't use their names. You don't use association. Like

00:41:14.840 you don't use the tricks that we all know work in remembering people's names because you don't

00:41:20.040 think you're capable of doing it. It's a two way street. Like beliefs can influence behavior. So

00:41:25.160 once you believe that you start acting that way and behavior can influence beliefs. So like,

00:41:29.320 once you make your bed, you think, Oh, maybe I am a little bit cleaner than I thought I was.

00:41:32.600 Um, but my, I think where I've come down on this or where I've, what I've, um,

00:41:39.960 concluded at this point is that, uh, they work both ways, but I think the most effective way to

00:41:45.000 change it is to let the behavior lead the belief to start with the small habit and let that provide

00:41:50.040 evidence of being this new person. Cause you hear the opposite a lot. You'll hear people say

00:41:54.840 something like fake it until you make it. You know, they'll say like, tell yourself, you know,

00:41:58.200 that you're this kind of person. And then you start to act that way. And I don't necessarily

00:42:03.320 have anything wrong with fake it until you make it. It's, you know, it's asking you to believe

00:42:07.160 something positive about yourself, but it's asking you to believe that without having evidence for it.

00:42:12.600 Right. And we have belief, we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence, right? We call

00:42:16.520 it delusion. Like at some point your brain doesn't like this mismatch between, Oh, I keep saying I'm a

00:42:21.420 healthy person, but I'm not going to the gym. Whereas if you just focus on doing like building a habit of

00:42:26.780 doing one pushup, no, that doesn't transform your body overnight, but it does cast a vote for,

00:42:32.560 I'm the type of person that doesn't miss workouts. It does prove I am a healthy person in that moment.

00:42:37.140 You cannot deny that at least for that minute, you were a healthy person. And I think there's

00:42:42.160 something powerful about having evidence to remember rather than a belief to try to convince

00:42:47.520 yourself of. Well, I think the evidence is powerful because the alternative is what you said,

00:42:52.960 where you are a little bit delusional. And then what I've experienced in my own life is that I'll

00:42:58.000 tell myself, well, I am a runner because I want to be a runner, for example. And then the other side

00:43:03.120 of my mind says, no, you're not, you're not a runner. And now I have this internal dialogue that's

00:43:08.300 conflicting with each other. And I'm just finally toss up my hand and say, fine, I give up.

00:43:11.880 Yeah. We have very good BS meters, right? Like it's, you, you know, you're trying to convince

00:43:16.860 yourself. Um, and so I think just doing it, even if it's in a very small way or smaller than you

00:43:21.500 hoped, um, it, yeah, it helps get around that part of your brain. And it's like, no, look,

00:43:25.920 this is actually true. Even if it was only for 10 seconds. Well, and that, I think that just do it

00:43:31.080 thing is, is accurate, you know, just, just do it. And, but at the same time, people who aren't

00:43:36.700 able to establish these habits think that that's not practical or not good advice. And that's why

00:43:42.680 I like what you talk about. It's like, you don't need to go in and do an hour powerlifting session.

00:43:47.240 You just need to put your shoes on, or, you know, you just need to get out of bed five minutes

00:43:52.500 earlier and do 10 pushups first thing. And anybody can do that and start moving in the right direction.

00:43:58.140 Yeah. This is one of the strategies I mentioned in the book, which I call the two minute rule.

00:44:02.020 And basically it says, take whatever habit you're trying to build and scale it down to something

00:44:05.520 takes two minutes or less to do. You know, it's like running four days a week is put on my running

00:44:10.000 shoes or read 30 books a year is read one page. And sometimes I tell people that and they resist it

00:44:17.080 a little bit. Cause they're like, okay, I get what you're saying, but like, I know the real goal is

00:44:21.080 to go for a run. I'm not just trying to put my running shoes on each day. They don't want to

00:44:24.440 train themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Basically they're like, if this is some mental trick, then like,

00:44:29.160 why would I fall for it basically? And, um, I get where people are coming from, but so I have this

00:44:34.340 reader, his name's Mitch, he ended up losing over a hundred pounds. And, uh, I mentioned him in the

00:44:38.460 book, but he, for the first six weeks that he went to the gym, he had this rule for himself where he

00:44:43.780 wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five minutes. So he would get in the car, drive to the

00:44:48.160 gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home. And. You know, it sounds silly.

00:44:54.360 If you tell somebody that sounds ridiculous. You're like, this is clearly not going to get the guy,

00:44:57.240 the results that he wants. But if you step back, what you realize is that he was mastering the art of

00:45:02.200 showing up, you know, and I think this is like a deeper truth about habits people often overlook,

00:45:06.640 which is a habit must be established before it can be improved. You know, like it has to become

00:45:11.700 the standard in your life before you can optimize or expand it. And so often we're focused on finding

00:45:17.680 the perfect business idea, the best workout program, the ideal diet plan. We're like,

00:45:23.160 so focused on optimizing that we don't give ourselves permission to show up, even if it's just in a small

00:45:28.320 way. But the truth is, if you can't master the art, if you can't master the art of showing up,

00:45:33.960 there's nothing to optimize. There's no raw material to work with, you know? And so I think

00:45:38.620 in that way, the two minute rule or whatever strategy you want to take, mastering this,

00:45:43.240 these small habits and finding a way to like integrate that into your life, casting these

00:45:46.900 little votes for this new identity. It's actually much more powerful than you may realize, because now

00:45:52.060 you've got a chance to expand and upgrade while you're also reinforcing this new kind of story or this new

00:45:57.680 type of person you want to be. Yeah. For me, one of the things that's worked well is just,

00:46:02.280 just keep going, just keep going. So an example, uh, I I'm not running so much anymore, but about a

00:46:07.980 year ago, I was really running a lot and I've never really enjoyed running all that much. I never really

00:46:12.300 found value in it. Uh, but I wanted to, I wanted to run. And I remember thinking as I was running a

00:46:17.380 mile, I'd say, okay, well, I'm tired. I want to stop. My mind would want me to quit. And I'd say to

00:46:22.220 myself, I'm just going to run to that, you know, that light post that's 40 yards away. And then

00:46:27.640 I'll decide if I want to quit. And what I realized when I did that is I'd run to the 40 yards and I

00:46:32.500 get to that point. I'm like, maybe I can run to that next light post, which is 60 yards. And it

00:46:37.520 would just, even though I knew what I was doing, I was trying to hack my way through it for whatever

00:46:43.000 reason, that building of momentum just kept me going and going and going. And I ended up,

00:46:48.080 you know, doing fairly well with it. Yeah, that's a great example. I had a similar strategy when I was

00:46:53.080 training. Uh, I had a really heavy, high volume workout load, uh, last summer. And it was just,

00:47:00.520 I don't know, it was just brutal enough. I looked at the whole workout. I was like, there's no way

00:47:04.380 I'm going to be able to do this today. Like I do not feel like I'm up for it. And so I started a new

00:47:09.960 strategy. So usually I write down the set after I do it in the workout, but for those like 12 weeks

00:47:14.740 or whatever, I would write down the next set that I was going to do. And I was like, all right, well,

00:47:19.280 this one's already written down. So I'll just do this one. Like I didn't want to have to cross it

00:47:23.440 out of my notebook. I had already put it there. And so it's like, all right, I'll just, I'll just

00:47:27.120 do this. And so I do that set and I get done. I would immediately write down the next one and then

00:47:31.380 be like, all right, I'll just do this one. And set by set, I would get through the whole workout that

00:47:36.540 way. Uh, just like slow, slowly convincing myself to run to the next light post basically. Um, but yeah,

00:47:42.840 that's a, that's a, can be a useful example when necessary. Well, I like what you talk about when you get into

00:47:48.940 the, uh, into the four laws. Cause I think we're tiptoeing around that right now is your four laws

00:47:53.460 of building habits and then the inverse. So I'd like to break that down. So break down if you would,

00:47:57.540 the four laws, and then maybe we can talk a little bit about the inverse of those laws as well.

00:48:01.740 So roughly speaking, if you want to build a good habit, you need four things to happen and you don't

00:48:07.620 always need all four of these, but the more of them that you have working in your favor, the more

00:48:12.540 likely it is that the habit's going to form. So the first thing that you want is you want your habits

00:48:17.160 to be obvious. And so that's the first law, make it obvious. The more obvious available or visible

00:48:21.900 a habit is, or the cue that prompts that habit, the more likely you are to perform it. You know,

00:48:26.900 like, um, I mean, just an, an easy example, if there's a plate of cookies on the counter,

00:48:32.140 well, it's obvious when I walk into the kitchen, I'm going to pick one up and eat them. You're going

00:48:35.480 to eat a Tupperware in the, in the top of the pantry and behind the door is closed. I'm not walking

00:48:42.000 into the kitchen and totally forget that they were there. Uh, you know, like I, I saw the same thing

00:48:45.640 with, um, you know, I don't think this is a strategy that'll, if you're actually like struggling

00:48:49.400 with alcoholism or something, but for many people. So if I buy beer, if I buy a six pack and I put it

00:48:55.380 in the front of the fridge and I can like see it right when I open the door, I'll grab one and have

00:49:00.100 it at dinner just cause it's there. But if I put it in the back of the fridge, like on the lowest shelf

00:49:04.000 all the way behind where I can't really see it, I have to like bend down to find it. Sometimes it'll sit

00:49:08.360 there for like a month. And so I'm like, well, it, it literally is just whether it's obvious or not

00:49:13.020 that determines whether I act on it. Like I only want it if I know it's there.

00:49:17.080 And it's not like it's going to take you that much more effort to bend down and reach in the

00:49:21.400 back of the shelf to grab a beer. It's, it's, it's insignificant effort. And yet for whatever

00:49:26.480 reason, it's like, I'm not doing that. I think it's that path of least resistance you talk about.

00:49:30.540 Like we're just hardwired to take the path of least resistance. So if you make those bad habits hard,

00:49:35.240 even if it means you're gonna have to bend over to get a beer, you're less likely to do it.

00:49:39.580 But it's even, it's surprising how true that is. In this case, I think it's what gets your

00:49:44.300 attention. Uh, and so it doesn't have my attention if I don't see it and then I move on and I do other

00:49:49.200 stuff. So anyway, the first thing that you want is you want your habits to be obvious. Second thing

00:49:53.800 that you want is you want them to be attractive. The more attractive or appealing a habit is,

00:49:58.240 the more likely you are to perform it. Then we can go through some examples of these in a minute.

00:50:02.000 And then the third thing that you want is you want to make it easy. Uh, the easier, simpler,

00:50:06.260 more convenient, frictionless a habit is, as you just said, the path of least resistance,

00:50:10.540 the more likely the habit is to occur. And then the fourth and final thing that you want is you

00:50:14.740 want to make it satisfying. The more satisfying or enjoyable a behavior is, the more likely you are

00:50:19.420 to be repeated again in the future. And not every behavior in life is satisfying. You know,

00:50:24.860 sometimes things have a consequence. Sometimes they have a cost. Sometimes they're just kind of

00:50:28.480 neutral. But if a behavior is not rewarding in some way, it's unlikely to become a habit because your

00:50:34.400 brain learns, like, why would I repeat this again? I don't have any reason to, you know,

00:50:38.060 to remember this sort of mark this experience. So those are the four laws of behavior change,

00:50:43.180 make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying. Now, as you mentioned,

00:50:48.620 these are the four that you can follow for building a good habit. If you want to break a bad habit,

00:50:53.340 then you just invert those four. So, you know, I mentioned like the cookies are on the counter.

00:50:58.740 Well, now they're obvious. Uh, and so that's the, I'm more likely to fall into it. But if I want to

00:51:03.260 break the bad habit, then you want to, instead of making it obvious, you want to make it invisible,

00:51:06.880 hide them, put them in a, you know, take them out of the house would be the ultimate version.

00:51:10.480 But also you could, you know, like I said, put them in a Tupperware container on the highest shelf

00:51:13.880 or the lowest shelf behind a door or something like that. Um, rather than making it attractive.

00:51:18.840 Can I stop you on that one real quick? Oh, I thought you're going to move on. I just wanted to bring

00:51:22.260 something up is because I've heard guys say, and this is, this is a really interesting thought. I'm curious if

00:51:26.680 you've heard this is that somehow let's take about, let's talk about alcohol is just not having

00:51:32.360 alcohol in the house. For example, I've heard some people refer to this as, as weak because it's not

00:51:40.120 exercising their willpower and it's just putting systems in place not to be tempted at all. So

00:51:45.440 it's, it's actually a form of weakness. I don't agree with that. It's just something I've heard.

00:51:49.740 And I'm curious if you've heard things like this as well, like, like somehow that it has to be hard,

00:51:56.260 that it has to be hard in order for it to count or something. I don't know.

00:51:59.700 Um, I would say that you need to be taking on bigger challenges in your life. If that's how

00:52:06.440 you're measuring whether or not it's strong or weak, you know, like the truth is like do something

00:52:11.300 more ambitious than if the, if like, if, uh, the way you measure your strength is like, Oh,

00:52:16.160 I'll just keep a temptation in the house or I'll keep alcohol around. And then it's like, come on,

00:52:19.520 they're way more, they're, they're way more, uh, ambitious, stronger things to do. Like prove your

00:52:24.600 strength in some other way, some more valuable way, some more, uh, yeah, meaningful way.

00:52:29.400 So I, uh, there's a chapter in the book called the secret self-control. Um, and I think it's

00:52:36.140 chapter seven. And basically the punchline is that a lot of the self-control research shows that people

00:52:41.620 who exhibit high self-control and people who exhibit low self-control actually don't differ

00:52:47.020 that much. The primary difference is the people who exhibit high self-control are tempted less often.

00:52:52.260 They design an environment where they're not surrounded by that. They just design an environment for

00:52:56.980 success. And this, I would say is another way to answer that question, which is, um, do you truly

00:53:02.480 want to be successful? If so, why would you design an environment that hinders you? Why would you,

00:53:06.840 if you actually want to be elite, if you actually want to be strong, if you actually want to be among

00:53:11.000 the world's best at whatever it is you do, why would you not try to design every possible advantage

00:53:15.840 you could to increase your performance? Um, it's yeah, I don't know. It's like kind of silly. It's like

00:53:21.060 Tom Brady's preparing for the Superbowl. And he's like, yeah, I have somebody wake me up every hour

00:53:25.580 because that's how I exhibit self-control and like, you know, that's how I show my strength and my

00:53:30.340 ability to sleep well and prepare for the match. Like why would you, why do anything that would

00:53:34.580 hinder your ability? Um, right. So, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't buy that one. No, that's a good

00:53:40.180 point. I'm actually reminded of, uh, the, there's studies that have shown that children with lots,

00:53:47.680 there's a correspondence between the amount of books in a child's home and their level of intelligence or,

00:53:52.980 or relative success as they get older. And, and, and I thought it has, it doesn't have to do with

00:53:58.140 the number of books. And I mean, that's, that's correlating for sure, but it has to do with their

00:54:03.940 parents value education. They value literacy. They're probably reading it and exposed to new thoughts and

00:54:11.380 new ideas they hadn't considered before. So yes, it's corresponding, but it's the fact that the

00:54:17.000 environment has created their ability to learn and have higher degrees of intellect.

00:54:22.240 I think as I'm thinking through this question more, I'm realizing what many of these people

00:54:27.300 might be referencing is the idea that like, we don't want to live in an environment that's soft.

00:54:32.620 We want to be tested. I want to be like stressed and strained so that I know that I can achieve

00:54:37.620 those things or whatever. And, um, that general principle I think is true. I just don't think that's

00:54:43.240 the way to apply it. I don't think the way to like test yourself is to keep temptations around.

00:54:47.500 I think the way to test yourself is like, try to do more challenging things. Um, and another way to,

00:54:53.780 to phrase this, that I think about sometimes like my, so my parents, when my parents were my age,

00:54:59.160 they, so I don't have kids yet, but when my parents were my age, they had three kids.

00:55:02.200 And my sister, the middle child, uh, was three years old and was diagnosed with leukemia.

00:55:06.640 And so when they were my age, they didn't need to find ways to test themselves. Life was testing

00:55:12.620 them enough anyway, right? They had three kids and one with cancer. Um, whereas, uh, when there

00:55:18.800 are other periods of life, other seasons of life when life doesn't test you as much. And so the,

00:55:23.680 the philosophy that I have now is when life doesn't test you test yourself, when life doesn't challenge

00:55:29.360 you challenge yourself so that you can handle it when life does. Um, and because we're all going to

00:55:34.780 have things that come our way occasionally. And that part of, if this is part of their argument,

00:55:39.940 um, that part is true. You don't want to be soft when you need to be tough. You, you want to be

00:55:44.900 prepared for the battles that life throws at you. And, um, I think a good way to do that is to

00:55:50.380 challenge yourself when, um, when it's easy, you know, like there's, um, I think it's a Japanese

00:55:55.680 saying the samurai used to say, uh, when the battle is finished, tighten your helmet. Uh, it's basically

00:56:01.120 like, yeah, when things are easy, when it's quiet, when it's peacetime, that's when you need to train

00:56:05.920 because there's going to be a time when you're, you'll be glad that you did. Um, and so that part

00:56:11.760 of the philosophy I agree with, um, I just don't think that that particular approach of, you know,

00:56:16.240 keeping temptations right is the best way to employ it. It's a, it reminds me when we moved,

00:56:20.860 we recently moved to Maine and pretty, pretty quickly we got dubbed the weird workout people.

00:56:26.760 I heard that people called us the weird workout people because we'd work outside, like we'd run

00:56:30.880 up and down the driveway and pound on a, a old tractor tire and you know, we'd work out.

00:56:37.280 And, and I thought, well, that's weird. Like what people don't work out. Like, uh, I don't

00:56:41.660 understand. Why is this so strange that, that we're working out? And the more I thought about it,

00:56:46.740 I thought, you know, these are, these are hardy people. Like everybody, my neighbors are hardy.

00:56:50.280 They're tough. They're resilient. They're strong. They're big people. And I thought, Oh, the reason

00:56:54.760 that we're the weird out people is because we have to manufacture our hardship, right? These are people

00:57:01.200 who are working in blue collar jobs. They're, they're lifting, they're putting in long hours.

00:57:07.520 They're outside, they're shoveling snow. They don't have to manufacture their exercise. We have been

00:57:13.640 accustomed to having to manufacture it because we don't have this difficult lifestyle.

00:57:17.720 It's a very weird part of modern society that we are surrounded by so much, um, pleasure,

00:57:23.800 ease, convenience, you know, like for almost all of human history, if you wanted to get calories,

00:57:30.280 you had to expend calories. You had to forage in a bush or kill an animal on the plains. Uh, now you

00:57:36.700 can just sit on the couch and tap a button and someone will bring the calories to your door.

00:57:40.640 Right. And so that is, that is like a very strange, uh, divergence from what our ancestor did have done.

00:57:47.360 And, um, that convenience, that level of convenience has pervaded many areas of life now.

00:57:54.140 Um, and so, yeah, we do have to manufacture hardship or challenge or whatever. And I don't know that

00:57:59.960 doing it just for its sake, I don't know if there, there could possibly be some value in that. I mean,

00:58:03.460 why do people run ultra marathons? Nobody has to do that, but they, they get some meaning out of it.

00:58:08.000 Um, but yeah, there's definitely, there's definitely a balance, uh, there, uh, there's

00:58:12.640 definitely something to be said for manufacturing that challenge. But before we get too far away

00:58:17.320 from it, I want to cover the inversion of those four. Um, so, so the inversion of the first law,

00:58:22.880 instead of make it obvious, you want to make it invisible instead of making it attractive. You

00:58:26.480 want to make it unattractive instead of making it easy. You want to make it difficult. And instead

00:58:30.660 of making it satisfying, you want to make it unsatisfying. And so from a big picture level,

00:58:35.200 those first four make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying,

00:58:39.540 tell you how to build a good habit. You kind of want those, you got like four different levers

00:58:43.960 for kind of changing things and trying to move things in the, the, that right direction for you.

00:58:49.220 And then again, from a big picture level, make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it

00:58:53.880 difficult, make it unsatisfying. That gives you kind of like four levers for breaking a bad habit or

00:58:58.860 avoiding some of the behaviors that you don't want to perform. And, um, the book of course goes over

00:59:03.300 many ways to do each of those things, but I think it's useful just to have that kind of framework

00:59:06.900 in mind for, uh, how you can adjust your behavior one way or another. Well, that's what's so powerful

00:59:13.240 about what you're doing. And I think I had mentioned to it, uh, to you before we hit record is just,

00:59:17.640 just having a system, being able to codify it, having the frameworks in place, and then just

00:59:22.500 incorporating some of these, if even if, if not all of them, some of them will obviously help you

00:59:27.160 improve your, your good habits and move you away from your negative or destructive habits that

00:59:32.940 you're probably engaging in as well. Yeah. And ultimately all the things that we've talked

00:59:37.520 about have, they tie together in that, under that system idea, you know, I mean, this is like one of

00:59:42.780 my lines from the book, but you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your

00:59:46.800 systems, you know, like so often we think, Oh, I want to change. And so we set a goal for how much

00:59:51.860 weight we want to lose or what we want to achieve or whatever. Um, but if there's ever a gap between

00:59:58.140 your system and your goal, you know, and like, what do I mean by that? Uh, you know, your goal

01:00:02.480 is like your desired outcome. Your system is the collection of daily habits that will take you

01:00:06.980 there. And if there's ever a gap between the desired outcome, the daily habits, the daily

01:00:10.900 habits always win. The system will always beat the goal if there's a difference between the two.

01:00:14.900 And in fact, you could probably say your current results, your, your current habits are perfectly

01:00:20.800 designed to deliver your current results, right? Like by definition, whatever system you're running

01:00:25.720 right now is what has carried you to this place. And so, um, in that sense, using those four laws,

01:00:33.300 it gives you a framework for adjusting your system for altering those daily habits that

01:00:38.260 ultimately can carry you to this new destination. Um, and that's why I like that question. Can my

01:00:43.880 current habits carry me to my desired future? And if they can't, if your current habits can't carry

01:00:49.500 you there, if the current system is not running you toward that path, toward that outcome,

01:00:53.060 then something needs to change. And, uh, what needs to change? I think the answer lies in those

01:00:58.600 four laws. Well, you need to make it obvious, you need to make it attractive. You need to make it

01:01:01.720 easy. You need to make it satisfying. Yeah. It makes sense. I think the greater that gap is,

01:01:06.980 uh, I think that's where a lot of heartache and frustration and depression and contention lie.

01:01:13.120 If there's a gap and disparity between your objectives and your current reality, that's where a lot of men get

01:01:19.620 hung up and then they start to feel bad about themselves and it spirals out of control. And

01:01:23.680 it's, it's like bridge that gap, try to shorten that gap between what you're doing and then what

01:01:28.080 it's actually, uh, uh, producing in your life. Yeah. Desire is the space between where you are and where

01:01:34.420 you want to be. And the wider that space gets, if it, if it gets too big, then it transforms from

01:01:40.200 desire to frustration or depression or, um, yeah, anger, annoyance, whatever. Um, yeah. And so,

01:01:46.860 so I think, I think you're right there. James, I want to be respectful of your time. I know you

01:01:51.240 got a hard stop. Let me ask you a couple of additional questions. Uh, the first one is

01:01:54.560 what does it mean to be a man? You know, it's obviously, it's a big, deep question. Um,

01:02:02.200 I almost like the question more like, what does it mean to be you? You know, it almost,

01:02:12.880 it almost is like the process of discovering who you are and what you represent and what you stand

01:02:19.340 for. And maybe that is like, to a certain degree, what it means to be a man. It means like to be

01:02:25.220 authentic, to be genuinely you, to be like, to discover and unearth fully, like what you are and

01:02:30.060 how you want to show up in the world. Um, and a lot of the qualities that we typically attribute to

01:02:35.440 great men, um, whether it's strength or providing or perseverance or, um, uh, competitive desire,

01:02:44.040 intellectual ability, performance, leadership. A lot of those things rely on you discovering what

01:02:50.740 your true qualities are and how you can show up to the best degree. And once you've done that,

01:02:56.140 like kind of inner work, that is when you have the chance to perform all those stereotypical roles

01:03:01.720 of being the leader, of being the provider, being the strong person, whether it's mentally or

01:03:05.860 physically. Um, and so I think it's more a process of self-discovery, uh, than anything else.

01:03:13.020 Right on. I like it. Well, how do we connect with you? Obviously I'm going to recommend that the guys

01:03:16.840 go pick up a copy of Atomic Habits, whether it's the book or the, uh, the audio version. I know you've

01:03:22.760 also got a great newsletter that you send out, uh, every week, but let us know how to connect with you

01:03:26.800 and learn more. Yeah, sure. So if you want to get more about the book, uh, it's called Atomic Habits

01:03:31.720 and you can just go to atomichabits.com. And, um, as far as the newsletter goes, every Thursday,

01:03:39.580 I send out a newsletter that is called three, two, one. So it's three short ideas from me,

01:03:44.600 two quotes from other people. And then one question to think about that week. And, um,

01:03:48.920 you can get that at jamesclear.com slash newsletter. And, uh, you can also poke around,

01:03:53.800 click on the articles. They're organized by category, see what interests you. Um, but,

01:03:57.560 uh, yeah, all that stuff and social media links are all at jamesclear.com right on. We'll sync it

01:04:02.100 all up. Appreciate you. And I've been looking forward to this conversation. It did not disappoint.

01:04:06.580 I know it's going to be valuable for the guys listening. So thanks for taking your time.

01:04:10.040 Yeah, of course. Thank you so much. Good chat.

01:04:13.100 Gentlemen, there you go. My conversation with James clear. I hope you enjoyed that one as much as I did

01:04:17.540 and not only enjoyed it. I mean, it's good to enjoy and you should be somewhat entertained,

01:04:20.680 but also that you're going to get value from it, that you're going to incorporate new things into

01:04:25.440 your life because of it. Uh, do me a favor, connect with me and James on Instagram. I believe he's

01:04:31.720 most active there as am I, uh, and let us know he's at James clear. I'm at Ryan Mickler. My last

01:04:38.620 name is spelled M I C H L E R. Let us know what you thought about the show. Let us know what habits

01:04:44.140 you're going to be incorporating or eliminating from your life. And also make sure you check out the iron

01:04:49.800 council, because if you liked this episode, then again, inside of the iron council, we're

01:04:55.160 incorporating some of the systems that we talked about on the podcast, order of man.com slash iron

01:05:01.040 council. Uh, if you want to see the video of this podcast, you can do so at YouTube, youtube.com

01:05:06.140 slash order of man. And then again, connect with us on social media. Uh, that's all I've got guys.

01:05:10.860 Oh, and also the, uh, origin made American made, uh, bison boots or whatever boots you're interested

01:05:16.100 in at origin, Maine as in the state, Maine origin, Maine.com. And then use the code order

01:05:21.720 at checkout. All right, guys, that's all I've got for you. I appreciate you being on this path

01:05:26.500 with me. I appreciate you holding me accountable. Uh, whether you're doing that directly or indirectly,

01:05:30.740 uh, there's a lot of value that I derive from being part of this movement to reclaim and restore

01:05:36.180 masculinity. And I want to thank you for what you do, uh, on your own paths and my path as well.

01:05:41.600 All right, guys, we'll catch you tomorrow for the ask me anything until then go out there,

01:05:45.540 take action, become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast.

01:05:50.980 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

01:05:55.020 We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - December 17, 2019

Building Atomic Habits ｜ JAMES CLEAR

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