← Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Emma Grede
James Clear’s Habits Advice Sold 26 Million Books, And It Will Change Your 2026
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- [00:00]
James Clear
Foreign.
- [00:11]
Emma Grede
Big ideas on small habits completely rewired my life. And if you're serious about change, he's the person you need to hear from. James is one of the world's leading experts on habits. His book, Atomic Habits has sold over 25 million copies. And you know what? 25 million people can't be wrong. Today, James breaks down how to reshape the next decade of your life and why. It all starts with the next decision you make right now. What does it mean to live a brave life as a working woman? It's about showing up, staying grounded and having the physical and mental energy to handle the pace of life. And that is one of the reasons to love Ancient and Brave and their pure, potent, powerful supplements. Ancient and Brave has been an iconic wellness brand in the UK for years and now they've launched in the us. It feels like the perfect moment to talk about the two products you can integrate into your daily routine that change the game. They're true creatine and true collagen. Called the power duo, emerging research explores creatine's role in supporting women's strength, cognitive health and energy. Ancient and Brave's true creatine plus is the one you need to try. Just load it into your water to support peak performance and vitality, then stack it with their best selling, clinically staked true collagen. A single ingredient collagen sourced from the EU herds, free from growth hormones and routine antibiotics. This is a daily habit that supports healthy aging, post exercise, recovery and skin. They come in gorgeous jars or on the go sachets for wherever you're off to. Ancient and Brave is a certified B corp, a member of 1% for the planet. They offer tools that genuinely support and nourish your brain. Backed by scientists and experts. Right now, Ancient and Brave is giving my listeners an exclusive offer. Head to ancientandbrave.com and use code EMMA for 20% off your first order. That's ancientandbrave.com, code EMMA for 20% off. Give your body a little daily bravery. It adds up.
- [02:16]
Sponsor/Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Macy's. Shop in store or@macy's.com.
- [02:26]
Emma Grede
James, thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to talk to you. I've read your book. Thank you. Inside out.
- [02:32]
James Clear
You're the one. Thank you.
- [02:35]
Emma Grede
I'm one of the 25 million people that bought that book and it's my theory that 25 million people cannot possibly be wrong. So congratulations. No, it's. It's absolutely the truth. So Listen. For so many people listening to this right now, it will be the first podcast that they listen to at the top of the new year. And so I really think that habits are so incredibly formative, incredibly important for your life and for your success. And so I want you to contextualize a little bit. For anyone that's listening right now, if they listen to what you say and they do what, you know, what actually can they get out of it?
- [03:14]
James Clear
When we talk about habits, a lot of the time we're really talking about the process of learning. It's the process of how your brain and body learns a new behavior or something to do. And everything that you do now was previously unknown to you. When you were born, you didn't know how to chop a tomato or, you know, write your name or brush your teeth or anything, start a business. But now you have skills because you've practiced these things. And so one of the lessons is that you will get better at anything that you practice. And if you take a minute to look at what people are practicing each day, like, what do a lot of people spend their time practicing? Practice the art of getting mad on social media. Practice the art of, you know, going into a spiral of negative thoughts and overthinking. They practice behaviors that aren't performing well for them. So in a lot of ways, your habits are the best lever that you have for driving a better life. Whether that's a healthy mindset or a more fit body or a more successful business or whatever. It's, you know, the things that you repeat are what you reinforce. And so if you want to figure out where you're going to end up in a year or five years or 10 years, just follow the arc of your habits. What trajectory are you on right now? I think the short way to say it is if you want to change your life, you have to change your habits, too. And there are lots of steps that are involved in that. And that's what Atomic Habits is all about.
- [04:27]
Emma Grede
Oh, that's what we're gonna talk to everyone about today. I mean, I feel like there was a time in my life when my habits were so poor. It's like I would get up late. I would, like, go to sleep late. I used to smoke a lot of weed, which does not lead to really good, healthy habits. But I feel like we've all been there. And so what do you have to say to somebody that is listening to this right now who's in a bad habit loop? Like, how do you get out of the not so good habits Two things.
- [04:58]
James Clear
First thing is, when things aren't going well, it's very easy to blame yourself. Self judgment, get critical, feel like you're getting criticized or other people looking at you or whatever. But if you're struggling to improve, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. We don't change, not because we don't want to change, we don't have enough discipline to change, or a lot of the standard kind of narratives that you hear. Usually we don't change because we have the wrong system for it. We don't have the right approach. And Atomic Habits is all about trying to build a better system. And so the second thing is, if you want to build a better habit, there are really four things that you need to work in your favor. So you want the habit to be obvious. That means it's easy to see or easy to get your attention. You want the habit to be attractive so it feels fun or it feels motivating to you. You want the habit to be easy, simple to do, convenient, frictionless. And you want the habit to be satisfying. You want it to be enjoyable or rewarding, or you feel like it benefits you in some way. So those four things, I call those the four laws of behavior change. Make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying.
- [05:57]
Emma Grede
Can you give me an example of that? What's the easiest example?
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James Clear
Well, actually, one of the most interesting things is to look at the behaviors that are very easy to form a habit on. So, like checking your phone, you know, nobody. People sit around all the time and they say, oh, I wish I had enough discipline to work out more. I wish I had enough discipline to meditate every day or whatever. Nobody ever says, oh, I wish I had enough discipline to check my smartphone. You know, it's like it just happens.
- [06:18]
Emma Grede
That does happen somehow.
- [06:19]
James Clear
So why does that happen so seamlessly? And what can we learn about our habits from that? Well, one reason is it's very obvious. Your phones are always on you. It's buzzing, you get notifications, somebody texts you, whatever. It gets your attention. Second reason is it's very attractive. There are all kinds of interesting things. You know how many people are following me on social media? Do I play a video game? Check my email, see if somebody messaged me, whatever. It's simple. Most of the behaviors are very frictionless to do. In fact, a lot of the largest companies in the world now, many of the apps that are on your phone basically take a simple human desire and then they try to make it as frictionless and as simple. As possible doordash. Everybody needs to eat now. You can just tap your thumb a couple times and the food will show up for you. And then it's. Of course, it's rewarding. And there's lots of stuff about dopamine hits and all that kind of stuff. But that's one example of a behavior that is obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying. And what do we all do? Billions of us are just picking our phone up every three minutes. So take that same idea and apply it to something that you want to do. You know, like exercise is probably the most common example. It's the most typical New Year's resolution or the most popular New Year's resolution. But make it obvious. All right? If you want to go for a run, set your running shoes and your clothes out the night before. So it's right there as soon as you wake up. I actually have a couple readers who will sleep in their running clothes and then they just get out and just put their shoes on.
- [07:35]
Emma Grede
I could just turn over and not look at a running shoe, like very easily. All right, so make it obvious.
- [07:40]
James Clear
So second step is make it attractive, right? So you wake up on January 2nd, you're like, all right, today's gonna be the day. And your bed is warm, it's cold outside. You're like, well, maybe I'll press snooze. But if you text a friend and you say, hey, let's meet at the park at 6:30 and go for a run, well, now you wake up at six and your bed is still warm and it's still cold outside. But if you don't get up and go for a run, you're a jerk. Cause you leave a friend at the park all alone. So you've simultaneously made it more attractive to get up and go for a run and less attractive to press noose and sleep in. You haven't changed how hard the habit is. The run is still going to be just as annoying as it was before. Yeah, but you have made it more attractive. Make it easy is pretty obvious here. You would scale the run down, make it shorter. Maybe you just go around the block the first time. There's this guy named Mitch I mentioned in Atomic Habits. When he first started going to the gym, he had this strange little rule for himself where he wasn't allowed to stay for longer than five minutes. So he'd get in the car, drive to the gym, get out, do half an exercise, get back in the car, drive home and. Sounds silly, right? Like clearly this is not going to get the guy the Results that he wants. But if you take a step back, what you realize is he was mastering the art of showing up. He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym for his, even if it was only for five minutes. I think this is a pretty deep truth about habits, Something that people often overlook, which is a habit must be established before it can be improved. You have to make it the standard in your life before you can optimize it and scale it up. You need to standardize before you optimize. But most of the time, we're so focused on finding the perfect workout plan, the ideal diet, the best sales strategy, the perfect business idea. We're so focused on optimizing that we don't give ourselves permission to show up in the small way. But, you know, if you can't master the art of going to the gym for five minutes, four days a week, who cares how good the 45 minute workout plan is? You know, it's just a theory at that point. There's a quote from Ed Lattimore where he says, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door.
- [09:34]
Emma Grede
That's a really good quote.
- [09:35]
James Clear
There are a lot of things in life that are like that.
- [09:36]
Emma Grede
That's a really good quote.
- [09:37]
James Clear
You know, the hardest step is the first one.
- [09:39]
Emma Grede
Ye.
- [09:40]
James Clear
So I think if I could only boil. I had somebody ask me recently, hey, you know, 25 million people have read this book. What are some of the themes that you've seen bubble up? If I could boil it down to one thing, like, the single biggest theme that comes out is at the end of the day, most of this is really about making it easy to start. And the easier that you can make it to start to show up, the easier you can make it to master the first 30 seconds or the first five minutes, the better positioned you are to be successful. And there are lots of things that you can do for that to make that possible. But really sticking with habits, being consistent is just an exercise in getting started each day. And so the person who starts consistently is the person who sticks with it.
- [10:19]
Emma Grede
Yeah, because I feel like for so many people, like, starting is okay. You know, it's January. You're like, I'm gonna do this. I got a new workout kit. I'm feeling like, who wants to break their goals in January? But by the time it gets to February, it's a whole different thing. So what is the one thing that people get completely wrong about the way that habits form? And what are the, like, invisible mistakes that derail us?
- [10:44]
James Clear
I like the phrase Invisible mistakes.
- [10:45]
Emma Grede
That's good.
- [10:46]
James Clear
All right, two. Two things. First, invisible mistake is they think they're making it simple when they're really not. So they'll say something like, all right, I'm only going to do one thing. I'll just focus on going to the gym to start the new year, and that'll be my habit. But if you're focused on working out for an hour or whatever, then all of a sudden you look up, you had a long day at work, you only have 20 minutes left. You're like, oh, I don't have time for my workout. One of the little messages that I try to remind myself of is, reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule.
- [11:13]
Emma Grede
Reduce the scope.
- [11:14]
James Clear
Reduce the scope, but stick to the schedule. The original scope was I was gonna work out for an hour, and now I only have 20 minutes. So a lot of people are like, oh, I can't work out today, but reduce the scope and stick to the schedule.
- [11:24]
Emma Grede
So you're like, do the 20 minutes.
- [11:25]
James Clear
Yeah, what can you do in 20 minutes? And I've had so many days where time gets away from me, and all I have time for is I go to the gym and I do, like, three sets of squats, and that's it or something. You know, you only have time to do one exercise or whatever. But in many ways, I feel like the bad days are more important than the good days. They end up counting for more because you don't throw up a zero, and you keep the habit alive. And if you keep the habit alive, then all you need is time. But somebody who's too focused on it being perfect, well, then they just, like, let that day go by, and that's a missed opportunity. I almost feel like not. We've been using a lot of, like, personal examples, working on stuff, but I think it's true in business as well. The only place that you really gain an edge is when you show up on the hard days. Yeah, showing up on the easy days. Everybody shows up on the easy days. They feel good. They have enough energy, they have enough time. Everybody does it when it's easy. So it's only when things are suboptimal that you actually gain any distance on what the majority of people are doing. And not that it's all about, like, winning, but the way that greatness shows up is through consistency. So if you want to do anything well, you have to be able to show up when the situation is suboptimal, not when it's in your favor. And scaling habits down, reducing the scope but sticking to the schedule is a way to do that. It's a way to not throw up a zero and make sure that you stick with it.
- [12:42]
Emma Grede
And what's the science behind that? Because I feel for so many people. So we do a couple of things, right? We don't just say, oh, I'm going to start going to the gym, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm gonna get healthy, I'm gonna change the way I eat, I'm gonna change all these things. So we actually try to put so many different things together, and then when one thing falls, like, somehow they all fall. So what does the science say behind, to your point, Just doing what you can. Not throwing up a zero. Doing the 20 minutes, if 20 minutes is all you've got.
- [13:11]
James Clear
So I think this leads into the second invisible mistake, which is usually when we start and people say, what do you want to achieve? Pick whatever habit you want. Business, creativity, life, fitness. People start by picking something they want to achieve, an outcome that they want. I want to lose 20 pounds, I want to make a million dollars, I want to publish a book, whatever, right? There's some. There's some outcome that we optimize for. And I think instead of asking, what do I wish to achieve, we should start by asking, who do I wish to become? So who are my habits reinforcing? You know, what identity am I fostering through these behaviors that I do each day? This is a concept that in the book, I refer to it as identity based habits. And the idea is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
- [13:57]
Emma Grede
Oh, yeah.
- [13:58]
James Clear
So when you show up, if you walk outside today and you shoot a basketball, you don't instantly think, oh, I'm a basketball player. But if you shoot free throws every afternoon for the next three months or six months or year, at some point you cross this invisible threshold where you say, yeah, I guess playing basketball is part of who I am. And it works that way for everything. Every time you show up and record a podcast, you're casting a vote for being a podcaster. Every time you go to the gym, even if it's just for five minutes, you cast a vote for being the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And no, writing one sentence does not, like, make you a writer, but it does cast a vote for, I'm an author, I'm a writer. I'm the type of person who doesn't miss writing sessions. And the more that you build up evidence of that identity the more you will push to maintain it, the more you will fight to keep the habit, because you start to take pride in that being part of your story.
- [14:46]
Emma Grede
And you literally start to believe that you're the kind of person that can achieve those things.
- [14:51]
James Clear
I think the difference here. So you often hear people say something like, fake it till you make it. I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it till you make it. It's asking you to believe something positive about yourself.
- [15:01]
Emma Grede
But you're saying, don't fake it. You're saying, do it.
- [15:04]
James Clear
I'm saying behavior and beliefs are a two way street. So what you believe will impact the actions you take, but the actions you take will also impact what you believe about yourself. And so start with meditating for one minute or making one sales call or doing one pushup and let that be evidence that in that moment you were that kind of person. And pretty soon you look back in three months or six months and you start to see why these small actions matter. It's not just about getting a result in the moment. It's also about building up a body of evidence, piling, casting votes on the pile for who you are. And you can't deny it because you.
- [15:40]
Emma Grede
Can say it's not deny it.
- [15:41]
James Clear
Yeah, I just did that for three months, so I know that this is who I am.
- [15:44]
Emma Grede
It's so interesting, I mean, I'm fascinated that after the unbelievable success of this book, you decided to do a workbook and you decided to do a workbook, what, seven, seven years after the book.
- [15:54]
James Clear
Seven years. Yeah.
- [15:56]
Emma Grede
Yeah. We're like, come on now, what's going on? I love that you did it. What made you decide that you wanted to actually do a workbook? And what are you solving with this project specifically?
- [16:05]
James Clear
Well, something that I've learned from working with people and businesses the last seven years talking about the book is people can always use more direct, specific help with implementing their habits. You know, my kind of, my objective, my guiding light as an entrepreneur is just to be useful. So I want to try to produce the most useful things that I can. In a sense, I get paid for, like the quality of my ideas. And if I have better ideas, things go well, and if I have bad ideas, then I get criticized for it and that's how it should be. And, and so Atomic Habits is like all of the best ideas that I have for building habits. But you could still sit there and say, okay, I understand environment design. How do I redesign my environment to make habits easy? And that's what the exercises in the book are for or. Okay, I understand that scaling habits down is helpful. How do I actually break my habit down so it's something I can follow and that's what the exercise is for.
- [16:52]
Emma Grede
For people that are listening. Like, you know those things, you know those things about yourself when you're doing them. And so sometimes just being, having the awareness of like, this is just not what I want. I don't want to eat this way, I don't want to be like this. I don't want to spend this much time in bed. It's like, well then what is the opposite of all the stuff that you don't want to do?
- [17:12]
James Clear
Something that you're saying here reminds me of a thought, which is that in many ways I think the two timeframes that matter most in life are 10 years and 1 hour.
- [17:21]
Emma Grede
10 years and 1 hour.
- [17:22]
James Clear
10 Years is shorthand for all the big, important, meaningful stuff in life. Think about most of the big movements in life, the things that people really care about. You know, building a marriage that you're proud of, raising successful kids, you know, creating a successful business, getting in the best shape of your life, contributing to some cause, whatever it is. Like it's usually a multi year thing, right? Sometimes multi decade. They're big long term visions. And so I think it's important to think longer term than most people will. It changes the choices that you make in the moment. But you need to pair that with one hour, which is shorthand for how can you do something in the next hour that contributes to where you want to be in 10 years.
- [18:03]
Emma Grede
I love that.
- [18:04]
James Clear
You never want a day to pass without doing something that will benefit you in a decade.
- [18:08]
Emma Grede
Yes.
- [18:08]
James Clear
And not everything in life will be like that. Right. There are lots of things that just have to get done each day. There are tasks to do, whatever, but if you can go to bed each night and you've done something today that will pay off for you in 10 years. You usually don't even need to wait 10 years. Usually it's two or three or four. And you start to see how those things accumulate and stack up. So it is the combination of long term vision and short term action, Long.
- [18:32]
Emma Grede
Term vision and short term action. So you're literally saying to yourself, I've got this big picture goal for myself that's going to take potentially a decade to achieve. But I'm not going to go to sleep until I've done something small that's getting me there.
- [18:45]
James Clear
This is the core insight behind atomic habits. The phrase I chose, the phrase Atomic habits for three reasons. So first reason is atomic means tiny or small like an atom. And your habits should be small and easy to do. Second reason is an atom is a unit in a larger system. So your habits are kind of like the fundamental units of your day, and collectively they make up your daily routine. And the third meaning of the word atomic is the source of immense energy or power. And so if you put all three of those together, you understand the whole of the book. So you got, you make changes that are small and easy to do, you layer them on top of each other like units in a larger system, and you end up with a really powerful result. And I think that is basically long term vision, short term action. It's how am I taking steps today that are contributing to this larger result that I want?
- [19:32]
Emma Grede
So I love that you frame that up for us though, because even as you speak, everything sounds so simple, it sounds so easy. And so when people listen to this, they're like, yeah, I've done that. Like, I've tried that. Like, that feels so obvious. But really what you're talking about is this idea of like the compounding effects of small actions. Right? You say it much more beautifully than that.
- [19:52]
James Clear
Well, we all know people have done this, and we all have also done this ourselves, which is you can take small actions that accumulate or you can take small actions that evaporate. You know, we all have spent time on small things that are trivial minutia. They don't really add up to much. And so I think the dividing line here is, am I taking small actions that are accumulating toward a larger thing? They're part of something bigger. And you can start to see how they compound day in and day out. It's easy to just spend time doing little things that don't matter. And so there is, it's not. The key is not just that it's small, it's also that it accumulates.
- [20:25]
Emma Grede
It's. Yeah, it accumulates and it's working very purposefully towards whatever this end goal is. I think people find it very, very difficult to imagine themselves that far out. But I think that you really have to do. I mean, I'm a furious planner and it's not my quote, but somebody amazing said, you know, people tend to underestimate what they can do in a decade. Right. And it's really, it's an interesting way to think about your life. I always had these plans for myself. It started with the 30 plan and then the 40 plan. Then I'll be working on my 50 plan. But for me, it's a. I love to have something that feels that far out because for me, I can then break it down and I go, all right, well, like, there is a thing that I can do that's going to get me closer to that. There's no illusion that it's going to happen quickly. And I know that in my life it takes like a million little steps. And that's all right, because having that context of it being really far out makes you relax about it almost, in a way.
- [21:20]
James Clear
You know, what's interesting is many people feel like what they lack is motivation, but what they really lack is clarity.
- [21:26]
Emma Grede
Yeah. And vision sometimes. Right. That you can lack a vision for yourself.
- [21:30]
James Clear
The more clearly you know where you want to go, what your vision is, the easier the next step becomes. You know, it's. There's a. There's a framework that I really like. Sean Pury, he's an entrepreneur. I think it's the first person I heard it from, but he said abc. Okay, so point A is an honest assessment of your current reality. Don't deny the facts. This is where I actually am right now. Point Z is where you want to end up and B is your next step. And the lesson is that you don't actually need to know steps C through Y. A lot of the time people feel like they have to have everything planned out, or at least a good chunk of it, before they can give themselves permission to move forward. But all you really need to know is A, B and C. If you know where you're at and what your next step is, you can just assess after you take that step, am I getting closer or not? Totally. And then you can do the whole thing over again from there.
- [22:17]
Emma Grede
I love that framework. I've actually never heard it like that, but that's how I feel.
- [22:21]
James Clear
Feel.
- [22:22]
Emma Grede
Because oftentimes it takes you getting to be. To even see what's happening in C. Like, you don't know plans emerge and they don't. Like it doesn't all make sense at once. And especially when you're doing, like, when you're doing big things, when you're doing important things, it's like it's never that obvious.
- [22:37]
James Clear
Is that line from Brian Armstrong, the Coinbase founder? He said, action produces information. So you're a point A. Take some action to point B and you will produce information and then you will see, you know, the next step more clearly.
- [22:49]
Emma Grede
Yeah. Which is a great thing for people to grasp onto because again, I think that, you know, you can feel pretty hopeless sometimes. You can feel like, wow, this thing feels so far away. How on earth will I get there? All right, I'll just give up. I won't even bother.
- [23:02]
James Clear
There's a. So there's, there is like a tension between these two mindsets. On the one hand, you want to think long term. Where do I want to be in a decade? What's that 10 year vision? But on the other hand, you can't get so paralyzed by that big thing that you don't take a step. And so I think there's a balance of doing that, but then also realizing you seeing the long term, but realizing you don't need to do that much right now. So sometimes I'll tell people you would be surprised if you can do it. Five good minutes Five good minutes of push ups will leave you winded. You'll be panting, gasping for air. Right? Five good minutes of conversation can restore a strained relationship. Five good minutes of writing will make you feel like you're moving forward on the manuscript again. It does not take long to feel good again. And so if you're sitting here and you don't feel good about where you're at or what you're facing right now, just try to have five good minutes. Do the thing that can do a lot to reset your mood. And then you see things differently after you're on the other side of those five minutes.
- [24:01]
Emma Grede
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you were to ask me what is the one thing that has helped me level up my life over the last decade, it's consistent therapy. Now, let's be fair. The new year often comes with this idea that everything needs to change. But sometimes what's really needed is simply a less burdened version of the same you. Therapy can help make that possible by offering an unbiased perspective, helping you better understand what might be weighing you down, and clarifying the motivations, emotions or relationships that might be holding you back. BetterHelp makes the process so straightforward, and their therapists are fully licensed in the US and follow a strict code of conduct so you can feel confident in the support you're receiving. To get started, you complete a short questionnaire outlining your needs and preferences, and with more than 12 years of experience and an industry leading match fulfillment rate, BetterHelp typically gets the therapist match right the first time, and if the fit isn't right, then you can switch at any time. With over 30,000 therapists and millions of sessions completed, the platform continues to earn really strong reviews. BetterHelp makes it easy to get matched online With a qualified therapist, Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com aspire that's betterhelp.com aspire. One of my favorite things to do is read. And when you have four kids and, you know, five companies and a podcast and other stuff going on, it gets really hot, right? It's like, it doesn't ever feel like the cozy moment to like, have a little ready. But I started doing 10 minutes in the morning and I put my workout kit on and I sit in the dark kitchen and I'm like, do you know what? This is the moment. And for me, that was always useless. Cause I like to read for an hour. I want a 90 minute clear moment where I can dive into something. And I'm like, you know what? I've only got the 10 minutes, so I'll just do that. And for me, it restored me as like, no, I am still a reader. I get through books a lot more slowly these days. But it's like something that I love and something that's meaningful for me. And so that little 10 minutes just like, restores me back to like, I haven't given up on this thing that's still a part of me. It's just a little ten minutes.
- [26:17]
James Clear
That's such a great example of giving yourself permission to do the small version. You know, it doesn't have to be the perfect version. It still matters. Those 10 minutes still matter.
- [26:25]
Emma Grede
All the minutes matter. You write about this really interesting thing. You say, time management is meaningless without energy management, which I love. What are your personal rules for protecting your energy?
- [26:38]
James Clear
So, you know, we all, everybody always said, oh, Everybody only has 24 hours in a day. Well, that's true. But those hours, if you were to break them out into 24 one hour blocks, are not equivalent. You know, you have different control over certain hours than you do for others. You have different energy during certain hours than you do for others. I think the question is, when are my good hours, when are my best hours? And how do I want to structure those things? I found my big change this year has been shifting my workouts earlier in the day. And just saying it's probably going to impact business stuff a little bit. But if I say my health is important to me, it needs to get some of my better hours. What was happening last year is it was only getting my leftovers.
- [27:15]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [27:15]
James Clear
And I was like, well, I said, I said this was important. But then you look at how you're spending your time and it's not. So. Yeah, I think that's One thing. The second thing, I think probably the more useful answer to this question is so hard to tell people, like, how should you spend your time? Right. That's everybody's personal decision. But the practice that I find most useful and that I think will be helpful for others as well, is a practice of reflection and review. So just purely mathematically speaking, what are the odds that what you're spending time on right now is the highest and best use of your time? It's very unlikely out of the universe of options.
- [27:50]
Emma Grede
Well, if you're listening to this podcast right now, I beg to differ. But otherwise, if you want.
- [27:55]
James Clear
So the, the odds are that there's something better for you to be spending your time on. And the only way to find that is to have time to reflect and review. What I found is if you have a strong work ethic and you've found that working hard serves you well in life, then that's really good. But sometimes it can become a crutch. You know, it's like for me, for a long time, my solution if I had a problem was, well, I'll just work my way out of it. And that works for a while, but. But what really matters? If you really push, maybe you can work like 10% harder or 20% harder. But if you work on the right thing, you could get like a hundred x outcome or a thousand x better results. And so you don't only need to work hard, you also need to make sure you're working on the right thing. And I don't think you can just stumble your way into that. I think you need to carve out time to reflect and review. What do I really want out of my life? What am I focused on? There are some questions I like to ask myself to try to, like, figure this out.
- [28:50]
Emma Grede
Well, you share those because I really believe, especially at this time of year, like, looking back, being reflective, being super, super honest with yourself is probably one of the most valuable things you can do. But it's really hard for people because all the shit you didn't do was your fault usually, you know, so it could. It can actually be a very difficult process to do. Honestly. How do you do it?
- [29:14]
James Clear
So here are some of the questions I like. No single question will give you the total answer, but collectively, they can start to move you in the right direction. So the first question is, what am I optimizing for? Different people optimize for different things. You will optimize for different things at different times in your life. Sometimes maybe you're optimizing for Money. Sometimes you optimize for creative freedom, sometimes you optimize for family or free time. But whatever the answer is, it's probably pretty personal to you and it's worth it to think about what am I optimizing for right now?
- [29:42]
Emma Grede
And it's critical, right? Like to be that. Because again, when you're saying, you know, it's about the money or it's about the quality of work, or I'm optimizing to spend more time with my family, like that is key to your decision making. So you really need to get that clarity.
- [29:57]
James Clear
It's key to your decision making and it gives you permission to not do other things that maybe you are berating yourself about right now. Oh, why aren't I spending time on that? And then once you realize that's not what I'm optimizing.
- [30:10]
Emma Grede
So you're using that question almost as a process of elimination.
- [30:13]
James Clear
Sometimes. Yeah. Okay.
- [30:14]
Emma Grede
I like it because, you know, I'm just, I like to work the backwards way into everything. So that's, that's helpful.
- [30:19]
James Clear
So second question is, what season am I in right now? So once I know what I'm optimizing for. Life has different seasons. You know, sometimes you're in a career heavy season, sometimes you're in a family heavy season. Sometimes there are all sorts of inflection points. And it could be everything as big as I had kids or all my kids moved out and now I'm an empty nester, or, you know, I'm starting a new job, or it could be as small as I took on a new project at work. And that's changing things. But when your seasons change, your habits often need to change too. And I find that I'm kind of a slow learner in that regard. Especially after we had our second kid, I kept trying to force fit my old habits into my current life totally.
- [30:58]
Emma Grede
And then eventually to my second kid, I was trying to force fit my old body into my old clothes. But I understand it took me about.
- [31:05]
James Clear
A year and a half and then I realized, stop being a dummy.
- [31:07]
Emma Grede
And a half. 2.
- [31:08]
James Clear
James, this is amazing stuff.
- [31:09]
Emma Grede
We have so much in common.
- [31:11]
James Clear
So what season you're in dictates the habits that you're going to follow. After you've spent some time thinking about what am I optimizing for and what season am I in? You can ask yourself, can my current habits carry me to my desired future? Am I on the right path? If your current habits can get you there, then great. Maybe all you need is patience. But if they can't something needs to change. And so that helps you distinguish, like, am I just being impatient about this or do I need to make some bigger adjustments to what I'm doing each day? The other question I like kind of adjacent to this is, I call it like the, I don't know, like the alien test or something. But like imagine some alien came down from outer space and they were going to follow you around for the day. You can't talk to them. They don't understand your language. All they can do is see how you spend your time. Oh Lord, what would they say your priorities are that? Right. If they can't hear your words and they can only see your actions, what would they say your priorities are? Because a lot of the time I find that the distractions that are most dangerous are the ones you have a good story for. You know, it's like, it's usually items that are like numbers 3 through 7 on your to do list because you're like, well look, it's number three, it's number four, it's on here, I need to do this. But you have a good enough story for it that it prevents you from doing priorities one and two. And that stuff that's your most dangerous distractions will always seem justified to you. And so you need to be ruthless about where you're spending your time and what you're focusing on.
- [32:33]
Emma Grede
Yep.
- [32:34]
James Clear
So those are some of the questions.
- [32:36]
Emma Grede
I mean, again, all kind of hard questions, right? What am I optimizing for what season am I in? Like again, you really have to be quite reflective about yourself to truly go, like, really, what season?
- [32:51]
James Clear
I think you need to sit down and think about it. You're not gonna, you're not just gonna stumble into the answer. But here's.
- [32:56]
Emma Grede
We tell ourselves a lot of stuff, right? We go, we go, you know, I've just had a baby or I've like this, we've just had a move. And you kind of categorize yourself in these moments of your life, but it's like, is that really the truth? And how hard do you hold on to the season? You know, sometimes we get kind of comfortable in these identities that we make for ourselves, when in actual fact it's like, that's just something you used to say. It became, that became the habit.
- [33:20]
James Clear
What you just said is a really important truth, which is the tighter that you cling to, to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. And so you see that identity is kind of a two edged sword.
- [33:30]
Emma Grede
Yes.
- [33:31]
James Clear
On the one hand, you know, we were talking earlier. Identity is really useful. It helps you build habits. It helps you establish being this type of person. It helps you. It gives you something to hang on to and something for the habit to build around. But at some point, growth is unlearning. It's unlearning the things that you were holding onto. It's unlearning the habits that used to serve you in a previous season, but maybe don't serve you anymore. And now it's time for something new. The other question that's a little more tactical. These questions have been kind of bigger and philosophical, but no one speak them philosophical. Yeah, so do I.
- [34:02]
Emma Grede
It's January. It's like, let's go deep, this is the time, let's go in.
- [34:06]
James Clear
But some of the other ones that are good are a little bit more tactical. And one question is what habits are upstream from other good things happening? So when you live a good day, when you feel like you're productive or you're kind of dialed in, it's like, oh, that was a really good day. What are the major pieces of that day? And most people have two or three things to kind of bubble up. Like, I know for me, if I get my workout in, that's a big part of it. Yes. Usually if I read, even if it's only for like five or 10 minutes, that's a part of it. For me, reading is often more important than writing because when I the reading sparks ideas to write about. So, you know, maybe those are two things that I would say are upstream from other good things happening. This thing happens when you think about what habits you want to build. It's really easy to pick a list of like 6 or 7 or 10. And that's too many things to focus on at once.
- [34:51]
Emma Grede
Is it? Too many things?
- [34:52]
James Clear
I think so. It's just hard. It's very hard to perform at a high level. While you're spreading yourself in seven different directions.
- [34:58]
Emma Grede
What do you say? What's optimal?
- [34:59]
James Clear
As I say to the woman with five businesses, I have a lot of.
- [35:03]
Emma Grede
People, I'm relying on a lot of other people's habits.
- [35:06]
James Clear
Yeah, I find that I can get away with. If you're just talking about, I'm trying to build a new habit, I find that I can get away with one professionally and one personally at the same time. And part of that is because habits are deeply tied to context, to environment. So if you were to talk to like an academic or something, they would tell you the definition of a habit is this automatic non conscious behavior you Know, brushing your teeth or tying your shoes or something you don't even think about. But I think a more useful definition for what a habit is is it's a behavior that is tied to a particular context. So your habit of watching Netflix might be tied to the context of your couch at 7pm and if you walk into your living room at 7 and you're like, hey, I want to build a new habit. I want to start journaling, your brain is kind of subtly being pulled towards, hey, this is time to pick up the remote and turn the TV on. So one thing, and there have been a number of studies that have found this, it's easier to build a new habit if you have a new environment. Now, that doesn't mean that you always need like a brand new room, but you could, for example, you could get a chair and you could put it in the corner of the room and you could say, this is the journaling chair. And the only thing that happens when I sit down here is I journal for five minutes. And now that context is starting to get tied to the new habit and becomes easier for it to get established and for it to be built.
- [36:22]
Emma Grede
And James, those things are important because as I. Even as you say, I'm like, do I really need a chair? Like, do I need the chair? Do I need a chair? You're like, yes.
- [36:30]
James Clear
Doesn't have to be a chair be a pillow.
- [36:33]
Emma Grede
But you're like, you need something like human nature means that we need that.
- [36:39]
James Clear
You can't have a habit outside of an environment. It's not possible. We live in environments all day long. We're in some space always. And so if you want the behavior to be reliable, it helps for it to have a reliable place to live, for it to have a reliable space. Maybe that's the meditation pillow in the corner. Maybe it's the journaling chair. Maybe it's, you know, something else. But it happens in the same place each time and that helps it get established. Now, once it's established, maybe you find that you can adapt it a little bit more or whatever. Sometimes when I hear from people who travel a lot, they kind of complain about it because they're like, well, I'm always switching context, so how do I do it? And in that situation, I would recommend find a part of the experience that is reliable.
- [37:18]
Emma Grede
Oh, talk to me about that. Because I am religious about my workouts until I travel. And then I'm like, well, I'm traveling. I can't possibly do it because my trainer's not here. And My stuff's not here and I don't like, do, you know, like, I make that the total excuse.
- [37:32]
James Clear
So, like, let's say you don't know what hotel you're gonna be in, but you know that you're going to check into a hotel. And you know that whenever you go up to your room, you take your bag and you set down the luggage and you unpack it or whatever. That's the first thing you do. Well, if that is part of your typical process, you could say, all right, my new habit is going to be after I check in, I set my bag on the luggage rack and then I do 10 pushups or whatever it is, you know, and you, you find a way to tie it to that part of the experience that is reliable. That's the context. That's reliable. Not even though the environment's changing. That sequence is always the same.
- [38:04]
Emma Grede
So you gotta tie it to the experience.
- [38:06]
James Clear
This is what. In Atomic Habits, I refer to this as a habit stack or habit stacking.
- [38:09]
Emma Grede
Oh, I love the habit stacking. That is, I have to tell you, thank you for that because it is one of the best takeouts. I want you to explain it and then I'm going to tell you my favorite habits because I just did it. But to me, that was like. I used the phrase game changer too much. But that was so game changing for me. It really was the. The big, like, if I could take one big takeout from your book, it would be fun.
- [38:32]
James Clear
Oh, that's great. Well, it's not my idea. BJ Fogg, who's a professor of Stanford, came up with it.
- [38:36]
Emma Grede
But you could have taken it.
- [38:38]
James Clear
Yeah. No, no, no. His insight, which I think is great, is that habits are easier to build or they're more likely to stick when you tie them or stack them to something you're already doing.
- [38:48]
Emma Grede
Yes.
- [38:48]
James Clear
So let's say that you make a cup of coffee every morning already and your new habit is you want to meditate. Your habit stack could be, after I make my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for 60 seconds. And then once you start to get good at it, you can start to build them out a little bit. So you can say, after I make my morning cup of coffee, I will meditate for 60 seconds. After I meditate for 60 seconds, I will write my to do list for the day. After I write my to do list for the day, I'll start working on the first item. And you've got this little stack of behaviors that you do in the same order every Time and it's tied to something you're already doing. And so it's just more likely that you follow through. A lot of people, I feel like they wake up and they kind of think they have this general sense of, I hope I feel motivated to write today, or I hope I find time to meditate today. And you're never going to find it if it's just like that. You need like a specific place to insert it into your routine. And so part one of a habit stack is find the right place to insert it. Maybe it's your morning routine, maybe it's some other time, but when is the right time for this habit to live and the right habit to trigger the new thing that you wanna do?
- [39:50]
Emma Grede
Yeah. And I think that it's that connection point that is really, really important for me. You stole it because it was coffee followed by meditation. Because I have to, like, nothing happens for me if it doesn't happen in the morning. So that was like a really amazing one. Because putting those two things together has just become. That's my everyday. Like, that's what I do. I would never skip the coffee, would never skip brushing my teeth. I'd never skip the meditation. And it goes like, in that order.
- [40:14]
James Clear
That's great.
- [40:15]
Emma Grede
But my other favorite one is like, when I travel, I will take my kids if I can buck my trip up. It's supposed to be on a Wednesday, I move it to a Thursday, which means I can have a kid be with me over the weekend. And it's just such a delicious little thing because it turns something that's like, okay, I've got to be away from the kids again, into actually, no. This is our little moment to have the offshoot time. And it's me with one kid in a city doing something that otherwise would never have happened. And it literally has become such a habit for me that I'm looking for those moments in my schedule where I can make it happen. And I was like, this is beautiful.
- [40:51]
James Clear
It's really nice. And they probably love it too.
- [40:53]
Emma Grede
They do love it too. Who doesn't love one on one time with their mum? You obviously have worked with a lot of leaders, CEOs, like seriously high executives. And I wonder if there are consistent habits that you see with leaders right across the board.
- [41:08]
James Clear
I'm gonna call these like an anchor habit or something. So it's like, what's the one thing that you do that you feel like primes you for peak performance? And there are some common ones that come up. Creatives often mention going for Like a daily walk of some sort gets their creative juices flowing, helps them see things clearly. Performers, musicians, comedians, things like that talk a lot about visualization routines, especially before they step out on stage. So that's another one. I'm going to come back to that in a second. CEOs and executives Meditation is I would say the most common one that I hear. You know, did I get my 10 or 15 or 20 minutes in in the morning? It feels like it sets the rest day up for success. And then workout is another really common one. I don't know anybody that does all four of those every day or anything, but those are the common ones that come out and maybe you can figure out which one sounds best for you. The visualization one is an interesting one that I've been thinking about recently and also learning more about. I was talking to this guy the other day who is. I have a. In addition to my writing, I also run a publishing company and or co founded a book publishing company.
- [42:06]
Emma Grede
First of all, we have to touch on that a little bit because it's kind of amazing what you're doing.
- [42:11]
James Clear
So anyway, he's one of the authors that we're publishing is this guy named Brandon Webb who is a. He previously trained the Navy SEAL snipers in mental performance. And he's also a father. He has three kids and so he took a lot of the mental techniques that he used with them and he also is teaching them to his kids who now are older.
- [42:26]
Emma Grede
He's kids.
- [42:27]
James Clear
So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now they're older, they're, they're great. They're all doing well. They're in college and whatever. But one of them, one of the key things that they talk to both seals and his children is visualization techniques. And specifically it is a positive outlook in any scenario and visualizing what a positive day might look like. So I actually ended up, I read a little bit about this, I talked to him a little bit and then I started. I did this with my son the other day. So I have young kids. My son.
- [42:52]
Emma Grede
How old are your kids?
- [42:53]
James Clear
5, 3 and 10 months.
- [42:55]
Emma Grede
Yeah, you're in it.
- [42:56]
James Clear
That's the best in it.
- [42:58]
Emma Grede
I love that you say it's the best.
- [42:59]
James Clear
It is.
- [42:59]
Emma Grede
It's so nice.
- [43:00]
James Clear
It's the best. Anyway, my 3 year old started preschool and he had a hard drop off the first day or two. You know, he's crying, fussing a little bit, doesn't really like it, whatever. So third day comes and I'm getting him up, we're having breakfast and I was like, all right, today's a preschool day. And he was like. And I was like, all right, hold on. So you, like, your teachers, Ms. Caitlin, Ms. Jayla, right? He's like, yeah. I said, what'd you do yesterday? You got to use glue sticks and the crayons. Like, that was fun activity. He's like, yeah. I said, what about snack time? You like snack time and lunch? He said, yeah. And then I said, what do you do after school? He said, well, when we get done, we go play on the playground for, like, 30 minutes. And that was it. I just stopped there. I feel like I'm not trying to, like, hammer at home. You love preschool, don't you? You know, whatever, but just a little bit. And then you said, what I'm trying to do is get him to visualize the day going well. And you can see how this could help you at any stage. You know, when they're in fourth grade and they're giving their first presentation in front of the class, like, let's visualize what a good day would look like. And the more that you do that, I think it's just. To me, it's like, which story are you emphasizing? There are good things and bad things that happen in every day. There are good things and bad things that happen in every life. And we're all going to have our time when it's your turn and life comes for you and things get challenging. But what story are you choosing to emphasize? And what I want is for them to emphasize the day going well or for them to emphasize the positive moments. I played baseball for a long time. I played through college, and when I was 10, 12, 14, at the end of each season, we'd go out on the back deck, and I would sit out there with my dad, and we would talk about the wins from the season. We talk about the game, the best games that we played and, like, the team. We talk about my best plays or, like, you know, games that I had that went really well. We would talk about the good parts, and what happened was I would end each season. I'd have this catalog of memories of things that went well, and it would send you into the next season feeling good. And so I think it can both be done beforehand to rehearse what would a good day look like? And it can also be done afterward, reflecting what were some of the wins from my last year or from my last month, and emphasizing some of those pieces of your story because it puts you in a better position to be persistent and to stick with it. The next day. One time I was talking to David Epstein. He's the author of Range and Sports Gene, a couple other books. And he told me, grit is fit, grit is fit, grit is fit. And what he means is that people often talk about wanting to be disciplined and persevere. We want to have mental toughness, but really what mental toughness looks like is it looks like you are well suited for what you're facing. It looks like you have a good fit with what you're dealing with, because the person who is well suited for it, the person who is a good fit, is having fun, they're having a good time. And so the person who is having fun doing that thing is a person you do not want to compete with because when it gets hard, they're more likely to stick with it. The person who's not having fun, who. It was a chore and a hassle and kind of they had like a negative frame around the whole thing to start. Well, as soon as it gets difficult, what are they going to do? They're going to give up. And so I think all of this weaves together to create this kind of mindset of resilience, which is you try to visualize what the day would look like if it went well after things are done, you reflect on what the wins were and what was positive, and you look around and try to find the things that are fun for you. I actually think if I could add one question to Atomic Habits, one thing that's not in the book I was.
- [46:24]
Emma Grede
Going to ask you that.
- [46:26]
James Clear
It was going to be this question of what would this look like if it was fun? You know, and so for any habit that you're trying to build, that doesn't mean that your habits will always feel like going to a concert or like the most fun part of your day. But pretty much any habit can be more fun than the default. Oh yeah, and just take the time to figure out what that version is for you.
- [46:48]
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Emma Grede
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- [49:59]
James Clear
I love being an entrepreneur, but I don't really care if my kids want to be entrepreneurs or not. What I want is for them to find something that lights them up the way that. That lights me up, you know, because all you really want is for them to be interested and invested and curious and excited about it.
- [50:15]
Emma Grede
That's it.
- [50:15]
James Clear
And if that energy is there, there's a million ways to improve, and you'll.
- [50:20]
Emma Grede
Be successful and you'll be happy. And those are the things that's all that any of us want for our kids. I think the big problem is, because I love that you speak about visualization. It's so much easier for people to sit in the place and be reflective about what didn't work out. Right. It's like, in a way, like, we spend a lot of our time and a lot of our energy naturally goes toward what didn't work out. And it's almost like that opposite of what you're saying is the right thing to do.
- [50:47]
James Clear
I think what's tricky. I'm trying to get better at this. I think what's tricky is there's a place for pessimism, there's a place for questioning and criticism. But the way that I've been thinking about recently is optimism in the beginning, pessimism in the middle, optimism at the end. So optimism in the beginning. Yeah, right. A little pessimism sandwich. Optimism in the beginning is. I try. I don't always do a great job of it, but I try to not be my own boss bottleneck. I don't want to be the first person to tell myself no. I would rather the world tell me no first, and then I can learn. Maybe it's a bad idea, maybe it's not gonna work. But I don't wanna say no. I want to say no.
- [51:25]
Emma Grede
So what does that look like in practice for you? Like, if you're gonna be optimistic at the start, setting out to do this workbook or to open your new publishing company. What does that sound like?
- [51:36]
James Clear
My little shorthand in my head is work backwards from magic. So what is the magical outcome? Let's dream that up. There are no constraints, There are no restrictions. Let's figure out what the magical outcome is, and then let's try to work backwards from there and figure out a way to make it happen. But what we're not going to do is dream up the magical outcome and then talk about all the ways that it won't happen and then not attempt it to start. So optimism at the beginning. But then once you have a little bit of a plan formulated or you know what that magical outcome is, pessimism can be useful. And specifically, the question that can be useful is if this is going to fail. How does it fail if we're sitting here in two years and something went wrong? What's going wrong? Two, I'm working on a couple big projects right now, and when I sit down with the team, I say two things. First is, I don't need to be right. I'm going to have a lot of questions or a lot of ideas and I'm going to propose things, but I don't need to be the one who is right. What I want is for us to get it right. So I don't need to be right, but we need to get it right. And then the second question is, I am a slow learner, so what am I going to figure out eventually in a year or two or five that you guys are looking at now and you're saying if he only knew, then he would do it differently? Or what am I going to see in two years? And I'm going to be like, well, now this is a real pain in the ass. I wish we would have figured it out then. The question that I asked for that is, what's not being said right now that needs to be said?
- [52:57]
Emma Grede
Oh, yes.
- [52:58]
James Clear
So I don't need to be right. I want us to get it right. And what's not being said that needs to be said. And if we can lay all that out and have an honest conversation, then. Then I feel like the pessimism is useful because it's helping us improve the plan. Yeah, but once we get through that exercise, you got to move now. We got to go back. And now I don't want to hear anybody not on board right now. Now we all need to believe, because the only way to make it happen is if we're all, all the way in. If you're trying to do something hard and it's going to be difficult anyway, we're going to face plenty of obstacles. I don't need to be talking myself out of it from the start.
- [53:29]
Emma Grede
Let's not have it internally. How do you think about organizations and culture and habits? Is it possible to implement good habits within a company?
- [53:39]
James Clear
Definitely. At some level, I feel like I get questions like this a lot from companies. I honestly think at some level it's like an HR problem. And what I mean is, do you have the right people on the boat? You know, is everybody rowing in the same direction or are people rowing in opposite directions? And then you're wondering why you're not making any progress. Some people just want different things, you know, and that question of what are we optimizing for? Is everybody here agreed on what the answer to that is. And a lot of the time, and.
- [54:06]
Emma Grede
Even if you're not, are you rowing in the same direction as me? Because otherwise you have to get off the boat.
- [54:10]
James Clear
Yeah. So that's tough, you know, and sometimes a lot of the time you also are trying to do both. You're trying to get the right people on, but you're also trying to make progress with the people that you have. And I think there are some things that can help there. Role modeling is the biggest one. Don't ask people to do things that you're not willing to do, you know, or like, what kind of. How do you want to show up as a leader? The best, the best form of motivation is not like fear of punishment, it's respect and wanting to reach that standard because they aspire to be the way that you are.
- [54:38]
Emma Grede
Oh yeah. So you're saying the best way to implement great habits in an organization is for the leadership to model the habits.
- [54:44]
James Clear
That they want for the leader to be competent. Yeah, I mean, that's like you start there. Now there are lots of other things that can come after that one. Interesting. The bigger the organization gets, the trickier it becomes because it kind of becomes.
- [54:59]
Emma Grede
Like a game of telephone teleme, you.
- [55:03]
James Clear
Know, it's like you have something that you say is a priority and then as soon as it gets passed through the ranks, it gets filtered and the message that finally lands to a lot of people is totally different than what you wanted to. So it gets hard. You need to focus on fewer things. I heard this story that Microsoft, when they were launching Azure, which is their cloud computing product, they wanted both reliability, no bugs in the software, security, and they also wanted speed. We want you guys to ship quickly and have a lot of features. And they knew that if they told the team that both of those things were a priority, they would just use one as an excuse for why the other wasn't happening. Oh, you said you want us to ship quickly. Of course that had bugs. Oh, you said you didn't want any bugs. That's why it's taking a long time. And so they decided, all right, for the first year it's just going to be about speed. And so the message to everybody was speed, speed, speed, iterate, fast, ship quickly. Then after the first or second year, they shifted and they said, okay, now we have a fully built out feature set. Security prior is the main priority and speed is less important now. But it shows that clearly both of these things matter. But they had to choose. And I think you also have to choose as a leader. What are you emphasizing? Because the message is gonna get muddy if you're trying to emphasize multiple things.
- [56:20]
Emma Grede
Yeah, no, it's incredibly good advice. I mean, you've been so unbelievably successful now, and obviously we're talking about your publishing imprint, which I think is quite brilliant. What made you decide to start your own thing, given all the success? I mean, anyone in the world would have taken whatever it was you were working on next, so why bother to do it yourself?
- [56:41]
James Clear
I think it's fun to try to make things better. And so, yeah, you saw a bunch.
- [56:45]
Emma Grede
Of problems in the publishing industry, right?
- [56:48]
James Clear
Yeah. You know, I launched Atomic Habits, and I love the team that I worked with, but.
- [56:54]
Emma Grede
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but did you. I just. I just got my copy of your book so I can make sure you sign it. And it's annoying because it's not the one that I've read 100 times. It's a new copy that came from upstairs, and it says 20 million copies sold, which I think is now 25 million. Did you visualize that? Did you imagine that? Did you optimize for that?
- [57:15]
James Clear
I don't think any reasonable person could have expected that. I had two things in mind. I thought, can I sell 100,000 copies in the first year? That was. I had. So my email list was about 400,000 when I launched, like 3 million ish now. But I thought, okay, maybe I can do it.
- [57:31]
Emma Grede
The.
- [57:31]
James Clear
Push it hard if I, you know, do a bunch of interviews. If I do the whole thing, can I do that? And the book is good? Obviously, you knew the book was good. No, no, I'm saying if the book is good, maybe it could do that. You don't know until you launch it.
- [57:43]
Sponsor/Announcer
Right.
- [57:45]
James Clear
So 100,000, the first year was my first thought. And then the second was, can it sell a million copies ever? So if I make the timeline long, could it sell a million copies in 20 years? Habits are still relevant in 20 years. 40,000 copies a year for 20 years. I don't know if I keep growing and keep writing about the stuff, maybe that's possible. Those were the two things that were in my mind. So I did not expect to sell 25 million 5 or whatever, but it was. Yeah, it's been great.
- [58:10]
Emma Grede
It's been pretty good. I wanted to ask you how success has actually changed your own habits. Like, have you changed the way you think about habits and discipline and your own purpose?
- [58:20]
James Clear
That's interesting. Some stuff changes and some stuff doesn't. Change. I feel like the important stuff probably doesn't change. You know, like, at the very beginning, I was just trying to be useful and share ideas that were helpful to people. I think that's basically the same now as it ever has been. You know, it's like, how can I be useful? How can I share something that's helpful?
- [58:36]
Emma Grede
Congratulations. You succeeded.
- [58:38]
James Clear
Yeah, thanks. Your time gets tighter. So that's different. You have to make decisions that seem almost kind of silly sometimes. Like, if you. If you do a good job at your thing, then your opportunity cost should increase every year. Which means that things that used to be, like, the coolest thing that would come across my desk in a month, now I have to say no to, and that still feels kind of silly.
- [58:59]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [59:00]
James Clear
I can't have as tight of a relationship with the readers as I used to. The first 10,000 people that signed up to my email list, I emailed each of them individually.
- [59:07]
Emma Grede
No, you didn't.
- [59:08]
James Clear
They would sign up. I'd be getting like. Let's say I would have, like, you know, 50 people sign up in a day. I'd send 50 emails the next day to those people, just saying, hey, thanks so much for signing up. I'm really excited to have you as part of this community. I'll be sharing more soon. Or, you know, something like that. You can do that for a while, but once it got over 10,000, I can't do it anymore. Then once it got over, like, 100,000, it was hard for me to reply to the emails, and certainly over a million. I just. I basically had to put the inbox on autoresponder, which is fine. You know, it's not terrible for anybody. It's just that I don't feel like I have quite as good of a read on the audience. I used to know it so well, you know? So the scale makes that part a little tricky, but it's all good. I mean, you know, what could you hope for? This is, like, best possible outcome.
- [59:46]
Emma Grede
So, I mean, it's literally the best possible outcome. But does it stop you from thinking about doing something else? Right. Has it been too successful?
- [59:54]
James Clear
I don't think so. I hope not. I. I heard the story that when Adele wrote Someone like me, or. Sorry, someone like you, that after that, she felt like the best song. Yeah, she was like the best song I've ever made. Is. Is done now.
- [60:07]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [60:07]
James Clear
So you kind of feel like, oh, you peaked. I don't. I don't feel that way about atomic habits. You know, I feel like it can just Be a project that I worked really hard on and did my best and a lot of people liked it. And the next thing can just be another project that I work really hard on and do my best and we'll see how that goes. But I don't think it needs to be more than that, you know, like I'm not making it my entire identity or life or whatever. I'm proud of it. I'm glad that people find it helpful. But I'll just move on to the next thing and try to be helpful with that.
- [60:34]
Emma Grede
Did it change your life again?
- [60:37]
James Clear
Yes and no in some ways. Of course, you know, it changed.
- [60:40]
Emma Grede
I mean you must have made a ton of money.
- [60:42]
James Clear
No, I'm talking to Emma Greedy now.
- [60:44]
Emma Grede
I mean you weren't doing that before.
- [60:46]
James Clear
Yeah. So you know, there's obviously lots of opportunities that have come as a result of it. You know, Author's Equity, the publishing company that I co founded, like that wouldn't have happened without it.
- [60:56]
Emma Grede
It's called Author's Equity.
- [60:57]
James Clear
Author's Equity, yeah.
- [60:58]
Emma Grede
So there's clearly something there that you did around the Author's Equity. What did you do?
- [61:02]
James Clear
Yeah, the model is the typical traditional model is you get paid in advance upfront, but the publisher keeps the majority of the money. So the majority of the success of the book goes to them. Our model is different. It's no advance up front, but the author keeps the majority of the profit. And traditional publishing is fine, but it's really a pre Internet model. Before the Internet it was true that authors would write a book and the author or the publisher would do basically everything else. They would do all the printing and distribution, they had all the sales relationships, more or less. Everything else was through them. But post Internet, the author not only brings the content, they also bring the audience 100%. And that is an enormous shift for the industry. And everybody has known this has been true for I would say at least 15 years. But all the incentives in the industry run against it. What publishing company is like, oh, we're keeping 70% of the money. But we realize it's different now, so we won't.
- [61:53]
Emma Grede
No, nobody thinks that nobody's going to.
- [61:55]
James Clear
Disrupt themselves that way.
- [61:56]
Emma Grede
But if you are talent, let's say for example an influencer, a creator, more traditional talent, you have a built in audience and you know that you're going to, on the face of it, sell a bunch of books to your community or fan base. This is a far more advantageous for.
- [62:12]
James Clear
Sure, you make 2 to 3x the money per copy. Authors will probably make twice the money. It's not just if you have a massive audience, that certainly is who the model is tailor built for. You know, it's, it's perfect for someone like you or I. Yeah. You know that when the book comes out, it's going to get a lot of exposure and you can keep the upside now. But we've, we've tried to map it out based on the size of the advance that you would get and how many copies you would sell. And it holds all the way through the line. So even for authors that maybe aren't going to move as many copies, you're still going to end up with more money. The key is, are you writing about something that's going to persist or not? If you have a book that is going to be relevant in three years or five years or 10 years, the author's equity model is very hard to beat.
- [62:52]
Emma Grede
And how does it work on the, on the flip side, because you're obviously the publisher at this point, how are you deciding what type of project should go into your new venture?
- [63:00]
James Clear
It's an interesting question. We see a lot of deals, we see a lot of books. It's been fun. You, you also just kind of have to decide like who do we want to be as a publisher? What kind of ideas do we want to support? And so far we've been lucky to work with really great authors. So I don't know, it's a one off thing. Each book is its own choice.
- [63:18]
Emma Grede
What an exciting new thing for you?
- [63:20]
James Clear
I love it. It's probably the project I'm most excited about.
- [63:22]
Emma Grede
Is it really?
- [63:22]
James Clear
It feels like each time we do it, we're changing the industry. So if someone were to come up to me and say, what are you trying to do with this? I say I'm trying to build the world's most valuable publisher. And what I mean by that is not the publisher that makes the most money, although that would be great. What I mean is the publisher that provides the value to authors. So that means four things. You get paid the highest royalties, you get the widest distribution, you have the best rights. So that means you retain the creative rights to your work. And it means we have the best process, you have the best team to help you create a great book. And if we can check those four boxes, we're the most valuable publisher. So far I think it's gone really well.
- [63:58]
Emma Grede
How impressive. And you've put together a pretty dream team around this.
- [64:01]
James Clear
Yeah, that's been a very fortunate thing, I think. I hope that in like 30 years, I'll look back and just be like, I just got really lucky with the timing this. Madeline McIntosh, who's the CEO of Authors Equity, she was previously CEO of Penguin Random House, which is the largest publisher in the world. She brought Nina, her number two, over. Don Weisberg was CEO of Macmillan, another one of the big five. He's one of the co founders as well. So the four of us kind of helped launch this thing, and now we have an amazing team around it too. It's been a lot of fun.
- [64:28]
Emma Grede
That's so fun. I mean, so exciting. Could you imagine when you were writing this book all those years ago, that this is where you end up?
- [64:37]
James Clear
Yeah. And what's crazy is not even that many years ago, I was, you know, I was finishing. I was finishing the manuscript in March of 2018, and then, like, here I am sitting with you now, and I'm like, I'm. Not only did I publish a book, but it did well, and now I run a publishing company.
- [64:49]
Emma Grede
Now you run a publishing company and you're a father of three.
- [64:52]
James Clear
And yeah, a lot's changed in the last few years.
- [64:54]
Emma Grede
I mean, a lot has changed for you. What hasn't changed for you? What is like, still the same?
- [65:00]
James Clear
I love working out. I love spending time with my kids. I love spending time with my family. I have a great wife. I like spending time outside. I like going on hikes, and I love creating and interfacing with new ideas. Like, on the reader side, the thing that I care about is, am I being useful? Am I producing ideas that are valuable on my side? The reason I like doing that is because I think it's fun to engage with ideas and come across new. It's fun to learn new things. All those things are the same. And that's why when you asked me a minute ago, has your life changed or not? Yeah, some stuff's changed. You know, you have more money, got a nicer house, you got, you know, whatever. But all those things, those things are all still the same. And interestingly, when you look at, like, what are you spending your money on, it's mostly to be able to do those things.
- [65:48]
Emma Grede
All the things you used to do.
- [65:49]
James Clear
Yeah.
- [65:50]
Emma Grede
Which is kind of amazing. Do you have another book in you?
- [65:53]
James Clear
Yes, definitely. What I don't have are, like 20 books in me. You know, some authors are just like, I'm making a lot, but if I'm fortunate enough to live to, say, be 80, then I think I'll probably publish three or four, maybe five. I don't know, something like that.
- [66:05]
Emma Grede
But are you working on one now?
- [66:07]
James Clear
I am. You are. I have three manuscripts that are in various states of disarray. Yeah.
- [66:13]
Emma Grede
So that's how you do it. 3.
- [66:15]
James Clear
I procrastinate on one book by working on the other one, but then what happens is none of them get done. So. Yeah.
- [66:21]
Emma Grede
Will we be surprised at what you're writing about?
- [66:24]
James Clear
Probably not. It's not gonna be about habits. I wrote my Habits book, basically everything I have to say.
- [66:30]
Emma Grede
Yeah. I mean, seriously, you can't read, Listen.
- [66:32]
James Clear
To this podcast, read that book. That's everything. I do think that it should pair nicely with habits. You know, there's like. There's one question you could have. You finish Atomic Habits. You're like, all right, I. I have the toolkit for building better habits, but which habit should I focus on? On, like, how. How do I decide where to direct my energy and attention? How do I decide how to spend my precious time? And so that's a question of, like, strategy and focus and prioritization. And so that's one thing that I'm playing with a lot right now is how do you choose the best things to direct your attention and energy toward? So that's some of it. I also just really like this concept of how do I have power over my days? You know, people, power has been discussed a lot, and it kind of gets framed as, like, power over others. But I think really what we all deeply want is power over ourselves, power over how we spend our time, what we focus on, power over our thoughts and our mindset. And so those are all questions I'm playing with.
- [67:24]
Emma Grede
I mean, I couldn't agree with you more. I just wrote a book called Start With Yourself. All I think about is, like, how we have ultimately control of our own thoughts. I mean, it's one of the things that we're all trying to master every single day, for sure. Yeah. And with all this noise out there, it's really needed. Hurry up. Get on with it. I can't wait to read it.
- [67:45]
James Clear
Let's go. In the meantime, I do have two things I'm. Two little projects I'm excited about. So one is the Workbook. So you've got. You've got Atomic Habits and the Workbook.
- [67:52]
Emma Grede
We will all be buying the Workbook.
- [67:53]
James Clear
The second one, though, it sounds kind of silly, but I really do like it. It's. It's an Atomic Habits daily calendar. And what it is, is it's just a page a day that's a reminder from Atomic Habits. And I have found. You know, I look at, I've got like almost 4 million people on, on my email list now.
- [68:07]
Emma Grede
Do you really? I'm like, why does this seem like you're not on substack or something like that? You do it. It's your own.
- [68:13]
James Clear
Yeah, it's newsletter. Yeah, yeah, it's on. It's, it's just a newsletter. Jamesclair.com Newsletter but what a community.
- [68:20]
Emma Grede
They must be so happy that you stayed with them all this time.
- [68:22]
James Clear
Well, so here's what, here's what's interesting to me is why do you sign up for the newsletter when you could just read the book? And the answer is people need to be reminded. We all need to be told this stuff week in and week out so that we stay on course, so that we stay on track. And that's where the daily calendar has been helpful. It comes out in a couple months, but I already have it on my desk and it's really helpful. I think I had this idea one time that I kind of wanted to hire a coach, like a mental performance coach. And all they do is they call you in the morning at 8am and they give you a five minute pep talk. Just one mindset thing and then it's done. That's it. That's the whole service. But it sends you into your day in the right frame of mind. And I kind of feel like that's what the Atomic Habits Daily calendar is sort of like you read like one little page and then you're like, okay, I'm primed for the day. And then you go. It's just, I don't know, it's just nice to have a little reminder to keep you on track.
- [69:18]
Emma Grede
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- [71:52]
James Clear
I'm so bad at Rapid Fire by the way. I give such long answers.
- [71:56]
Emma Grede
I am so long winded. Don't even worry about it.
- [71:59]
James Clear
First thing I do, turn my phone off and then take a shower.
- [72:02]
Emma Grede
Turn your phone off in the morning?
- [72:04]
James Clear
Well, I mean like alarm.
- [72:05]
Emma Grede
Oh, turn the alarm off. Okay, fine. I was like, wow, that is something else. All right, alarm off and get in the shower. What's the last thing you do before you go to bed at night?
- [72:15]
James Clear
Give my wife a kiss.
- [72:17]
Emma Grede
Aw. What is one bad habit that you've broken recently?
- [72:23]
James Clear
Checking my phone before lunch. I try to leave my phone in another room until lunch each day. I don't do it all the time. I can't. Don't, do. I probably do it 7 or 8 out of 10 days, but leave my phone in another room and then I actually get to work on my priorities from like 9 to 11, say, or something like that.
- [72:37]
Emma Grede
Shut up. Wow.
- [72:40]
James Clear
The funny thing is, I'm like everybody else. If it's next to me, I'll check it every three minutes just because it's there. But I have a home office, so it's only like 30 seconds away. But I never go get it. And so I'm like, did I want it or not? You know, in the one sense, I wanted it so bad that I check it every three minutes when it's there. But in another sense, I never wanted it badly enough to go.
- [72:59]
Emma Grede
To actually get out of the room and go get it.
- [73:01]
James Clear
A lot of your habits are like that. Introduce a little bit of friction and it can curtail to the desire degree.
- [73:06]
Emma Grede
You are the gift that keeps on giving, aren't you? What is a book that changed your life, apart from atomic habits?
- [73:12]
James Clear
Okay, so here's a little. I have a couple that I like. Manual for Living by Epictetus. A lot of people. It's one of the stoic books A lot of people talk about. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I think Manual for Living is almost better. You can read it in like an hour. It's very short. Nothing in this book is something you haven't heard before. But everything in this book is something you need to hear again. So just good life principles. Manual for Living by Epictetus. The second is Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant. So they're this historian, this husband, wife combo. They spent like this 60 year career as academics writing this huge 12 volume compendium, thousands of pages of everything that happened in history. And then when they got done, they wrote a little 100 page book called the Lessons of History. And it's about the main.
- [73:58]
Emma Grede
That's the one we need to read.
- [73:59]
James Clear
That repeat throughout history also. You can read it in like an hour, love. And then the third one, this is just personal for me, but A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawker, I mean, it's okay. So I read that book and I was getting ready. I was kind of in the early stages of writing Atomic Habits. And I thought, all right, if he can write a book about the origins of the universe and it's easy enough for me to understand and it's in 180 pages. I have no excuse. I have to be able to write a book about habits that's easy enough for people to understand.
- [74:29]
Emma Grede
Oh, yeah.
- [74:30]
James Clear
So that was an important one for me.
- [74:31]
Emma Grede
That's a great. I mean, that is such a good reminder because that is a brilliant, brilliant. But we all had to read that in school in England back in the days.
- [74:39]
James Clear
But education system coming through. That's great.
- [74:42]
Emma Grede
Real roots. Stephen Hopkins. Absolutely. What is something that you valued when you were starting out your career that you no longer value?
- [74:52]
James Clear
Interestingly enough, the office that I write in. I used to think if I only had a better office then I could have the writing habits that I wanted, you know, if I just had the ideal setup, the ideal camera and monitor and desk chair and whatever. And now I have a nice office and what I find is I actually write all over. I wrote Atomic Habits in the passenger seat of a car while I was on a road trip. I wrote Atomic Habits on my parents couch while I was visiting for the holiday. I wrote Atomic Habits in my office. I wrote it at our kitchen table. It's not about the space. And so, yeah, or I guess I should say it's not about the gear. I valued the gear more then. Now I'm like, am I doing the work or not?
- [75:34]
Emma Grede
What is something that you value deeply now that you didn't when you were starting out?
- [75:39]
James Clear
In some ways I feel like it was purist in the beginning. It couldn't have been about the money because I wasn't making any, you know, like I was, I was doing it just because I loved it. And so I think the lesson is the climb is the fun part. And in the middle of the climb you don't feel that way because you're just so busy trying to get to the next thing. You're so busy trying to climb to the next step, but the climb is the fun part. And so I think if I could go back, maybe appreciate that climb a little bit more, you know, it's. It's fun to get to the top. That's fun too. Yeah, it's hard to stay at the top. That's a lot of work. But the climb is, the climb is great. Like, I can remember the first day that I got 100 email subscribers in a day. We went out to dinner to celebrate, you know. Yeah, it was like a big deal, you know, I don't even know what we get in a day now. 3,000, 4,000, you know, I. Nobody's even like, we're not even paying.
- [76:33]
Emma Grede
Attention, selling a hundred of those workbooks. It's not going to move the needle.
- [76:37]
James Clear
Right now, which is great. And I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to complain about. My point is just that you're in the middle of the good time right now. Even if it doesn't feel like that. The good time is like when you're having to Work for it. And when you care about the wins and when each little thing matters, you know, it feels like you're proving it to yourself every little step that you take. I feel like my whole career has basically just been take my current advantages and try to use those to accumulate another advantage. And when you start out, you don't have many advantages. You don't know anybody, don't have much money or time or whatever, but you know, you like, try to find some little win and carve out that step and you step up a little bit and then you just do it all over again. And each one of those little steps is worth it. Each one of those little steps is worth celebrating.
- [77:20]
Emma Grede
I think that's a pretty glorious message to leave people with because when you're in the middle, it's so hard to think like that and to see it. But I think that's what anyone sensible and pretty much everyone I know says. It's like, I wish I could have appreciated in that, that moment.
- [77:38]
James Clear
It's not just business too. We went, we were on vacation and we were eating at a restaurant and I went to the bathroom and when I came back, my wife was like crying. I was like, oh, what's going on? And she's like, I'll tell you afterward. And so we left the restaurant and while I was gone, this man came over who's probably in his, like, 70s, and he was like, I just see you with your little kids and like, it's just, I just want you to know, like, it's just the best time of your life. And you know, like, it's just so, you know, so great. And we were saying that having the.
- [78:08]
Emma Grede
Worst dinner ever with this 5 and.
- [78:10]
James Clear
3 and 10 month old, and that's how it feels a lot of the time, right?
- [78:15]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [78:15]
James Clear
What she said was, you know, at the end of your life, if you were granted a wish to go back and get to spend any one day again, we might choose right now, you know, like we might choose today. And I think it doesn't feel like that in that moment, you know, like what you feel is tired or stressed or annoyed because your kids aren't listening or whatever. But it's true, you might choose today. And so the climb is the fun part. It's the fun part of building a family. It's the fun part about building a business. It's the fun part about building your life. It's also work, but it's the part that matters.
- [78:48]
Emma Grede
On that note, thank you so much. Pleasure.
- [78:51]
James Clear
Thank you.
- [78:58]
Emma Grede
If you're loving this podcast. Be sure to click Follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Audacy. I'm your host Emma Greed. Our executive producers are Corrine Gilliatt Fisher, Derek Brown and me. Our executive producers from Audacy are Maddy Sprung Keyser, Leah Reese Dennis, Asha Salouja, Lauren Legrasso and Jenna Weiss Berman. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black Video production by Evan Cox, Kirk Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado and Arnie Agassi Social media by Olivia Homan Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford My teams at the lead company and WME Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson, Rose, Tim Meekol, Sean Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G R E D E. That's Aspire A S P I R E with Emma Greed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website emmagreed Me.
- [80:19]
James Clear
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