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- [00:01]
Ed Mylett
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies. So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this episode@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy, how your habits deliver on your goals. So essentially it's got a little bit to do with goal setting, but delivered by the habits that we create. I'm gonna give you seven steps to making your goals a reality by delivering with them on habits that serve you. And that is one of the things that you've got to evaluate first before we get into the seven steps is you gets great to have goals and outcomes in our life, but if we don't develop habits that serve us and we don't have the ability to create new habits, we're probably going to produce the same exact results over and over again. You know, about 90% of our choices and thoughts every day are identical. And so that's why as a consequence, we produce the same external results. In life, it's much more important to be focused on what's going on inside of us as opposed to what's going on outside of us. Because everything, once it leaves us, is outside of our control. We can control the things that are inside of us, which are our habits and the reason habits matter so deeply. I like James Clear's work on this and other people's, including mine. In my book the Power of One More. I have a whole chapter in there of how to develop healthy habits that serve you. But one of the reasons habits matter is not just our day to day life, but under pressure. In life, under stress, we always respond reflexively. And so it's our reflex to respond habitually. So there's a lot of autopilot in life. That's true. It's why sometimes you can be driving and not even be thinking and just you kind of just pull right off the freeway, go to your house, take the left, take the right. You don't remember how you got home. Sometimes because you're on autopilot, you're on habit mode. But under stress and pressure, we respond to these habits that are ours. And so how do we develop these new habits that serve us as opposed to the ones that don't? You show Me, your habits. And I'm probably going to show you your life. I'm going to show you the difference that separates people is what they do habitually. And so we're going to talk about how to shift that a little bit. So one thing a habit has to have to exist is conditioning, meaning you've got to be able to do it over and over and over again so that it can replace something that was there before. And so for me, when I look at an athlete, for example, that's very, very successful, if I deduce what their habits are and I develop the same habits, I've got a higher likelihood of producing the same results as that athlete if I behave in a certain way. In other words, there's a consequence for choices in behavior, and we choose the right behavior over and over again. Success is really not that difficult. It's a collection of habits. And so if you wonder whether or not, you know, you can be successful or achieve your goals, that's really not the question. The question is whether you'll invest the time to get serious about changing the habits that would deliver on those goals. Goals without an attached habit are really useless, right? But actually having great habits with no goal is also useless. You just be going through the motions without producing a result. And so let's talk a little bit about the goal part first. Seven things that I want to cover today as it relates to goals and habits. Number one thing, with your goals, write this down. Specificity. You've got to get more specific with what exactly it is that you want. Imagine if you were going to invest in a company and they put their annual report out and they go, yeah, we want to be profitable or we made some money. Would you invest in that company? You would want to know specifically exactly what was the top line revenue? What was the bottom line revenue? What was are your expenses? What's your forecast specifically that you believe the dollar amount you're going to hit the street. You would never invest in a company that did not give you specific markers for what they've done and could not tell you specifically what they want to get done and what their goals and outcomes are. Yet most human beings are wandering generalities about they want, I want to be more fit, I want to be happy, I want to be wealthy, I want to make a lot of money. What does that mean? You wouldn't invest in a company that didn't have those types of specifics yet every single day we're walking around wondering whether success will invest in us. Success is not going to Invest in you. If you're general, by the way, your mind cannot go to work. Your brain cannot go to work on processing a non specific general result. It doesn't know how to do it. It's got to be specific. I want 10 of those. I want to weigh 125 or 186. I want 12% body fat or whatever it might be. I want $100,000 in income. I'm going to have five meetings. These are specific things. Then you can build a habit backwards from them. I'm talking about even the people that I coach that you know, pay me a significant amount of money. When we first encounter, I was working with a brand new person just the other day and he said, I just want a win. I just want to win. And I said, okay, what's that win look like? And he goes, I want FU money. I said, okay, cool. I love that. I love your passion for it. What's FU money? He didn't have an answer. And that's why he doesn't have FU money, right? He doesn't have it. And the reason he doesn't have it is he has never gotten specific about what that looks like. And there's a power to getting specific. Right? When you begin to get specific, your brain wants to develop habits to deliver on that outcome if you repeat it over and over again. Why? Because your brain is constantly trying to conserve energy. It's always trying to create a habit so that it doesn't have to think, so that under pressure it'll just be reflexive. Okay, so your brain wants to form a habit to serve your specific outcome. But when that outcome is non specific and general, it'll always revert back on producing the nothingness that that goal is delivered by the habits you already have. So specificity is critical. So what I'm saying to you is when you review your goals, whether that be for the year, the month, or the day, I want to have a good day. What does that mean? Clearly, the more clear, the more specific you are, the higher probability is that you'll deliver on it and that you will begin to create the habits that support it and reinforce it on a regular basis. Because remember, habits need conditioning. You developed this habit you have because you conditioned it over and over again. And the only way that it's going to get replaced with a better one is by conditioning it over and over again. And the only way you're going to condition it is if it's specific. If it's specific. Okay, so please, today I want to have a I want to make 10 contacts, then it's 10. Or if I'm going to sit on, I'm making it up. You're going to do curls in the gym, right? I want to do 10 curls at 30 pound dumbbells, whatever. They might be specific. And we're gonna talk about this later. Measurable and tangible, okay? And so whatever that is, you gotta have an exact amount you want so that we can produce an exact habit. Then the reticular activating system in your brain knows how important this is to you and will begin to find the resources, the people, places and the things that have always been around you, but that you've been oblivious to before to deliver on it. In the Power of One More, my book, I talk about the matrix I call the reticular activating system. The RAs in your brain is the matrix because it's sort of what reveals to you what's important. It can actually slow things down when you're an athlete or create the habits that you need to deliver on it. So this part of our brain's really critically important to program it. It can't program on a non specific general thing. And I'm going to tell you, 99% of people, even the people who you know are one on one, coached by me, aren't specific. And it's the major part of my work with them. Even athletes go, I want to win the fight. Specifically how, specifically when? Want to have a good game tonight? Specifically what does that mean? Three for four, two hits, you want to shoot 68. Like exactly. What does it look like? So that we can build the habits to back that up. And it might not even be that they want to score a number. It might be that I want to hit 10 crisp golf shots right on the button, 10 of them today. Right? Great. Or I want to only have 25 putts. Great. These are specific things that we begin to adjust. You'd be amazed at how much your brain wants to reserve energy. It doesn't want to think, it wants to build a habit so it doesn't have to think anymore and expend energy on it. So that's the good news. So specificity number two. What's the catalyst step? Just write down catalyst step. See, I think that everything James Clear has this thing where he talks about, you know, the two minute rule, the two minute idea, where if you could just get something done for two minutes, it's the beginning of a habit that can give you the catalyst of success. I call mine a catalyst step, meaning if you can just do one thing. Oftentimes there's one move that if you make it, it can handle seven other things. So ask yourself, what's the catalyst step I could take today? So, like, there's this notion when you go to the gym, some people say showing up is half the battle. No, it's not. It's not. It's not half the battle. However, it is part of the battle and so it can be considered a catalyst step. Just getting to the gym, that's not half the battle. It's not even 20% of the battle, but it is part of the battle. So perhaps a catalyst step is getting to the gym. Maybe a catalyst step is, you know, in your business life that you're going to, you know, pick the phone up five times in a given day or type seven emails. But it's some catalyst. You do something that's a catalyst to create change. John Maxwell talks in his book about the law of the catalyst. That is a person in an organization, they're a catalyst for change. So ask yourself, have you got a specific goal of I want to make a hundred thousand dollars this year or I want to weigh 180 pounds or whatever it might be. Ask yourself the next question, am I specific enough? And what's the catalyst habit that I would need? What's the catalyst habit? For example, for me, my energy was very, very low years ago and I decided the catalyst habit that I could control was drinking a gallon of water a day. That was my outcome. Follow me. My outcome was 1 gallon of water a day. Okay. However, that was a habit that was difficult to create. So I said to myself, what's the catalyst step that could get me in the door? And that was this. Here's the catalyst step. I left a 1 liter bottle of water next to my bed, just a liter for when I woke up in the morning. And my catalyst habit was when I woke up, I drank that liter of water before I did anything else. That was a catalyst step to get me towards my outcome. That was specific, which was drinking a gallon for the day, which was deliver on my overall goal, which was to feel more energy and health and vitality in my life. So that's an example of a catalyst step. What is a catalyst that you could do to get you into the game, to get you moving? Much like James Clear's two minute idea. Okay, These are huge things because you can start going step by step. It might be just getting to the gym. It might be ordering that microphone for the podcast. You're going to start just ordering the Microphone, Right. That's a catalyst step. Why does that matter? Because deliberation is delay. Strategy is oftentimes like strategic procrastination in the sense that what you're doing is you're going into all this planning phase, but really it's. It's mocking. You need more planning, you need more time, you need more strategy. That's all an excuse not to take action. And what I'm saying to you is, I cannot teach you how to drive a parked car. The most important thing you can do is to just get going. You've got to write an entire book. Maybe the catalyst step is you're going to write the first sentence of the book. I had a friend of mine, when I was struggling writing the Power of One More, I just couldn't get decided on what I wanted the book to be about. Exactly. He said, forget writing the book. He said, write out what you want the chapters to be. First, you don't even have a title of the book yet. What would the chapters be? And so I wrote the chapters out, just the titles of the chapters, not what was in the chapters, not what I was going to say about them, not the content, not the quotes, not the title of the book, not even the flow of the chapters. Just what would the chapters be? And what that did is, was a catalyst step to get me out of delay, to get me out of procrastination, to get me away from deliberating about it or strategizing about it or planning about it. It got me in motion. And then I wrote those chapters out. I went, no, that wouldn't be the order. I'll flip this. And then the next morning I will go, nah, that wouldn't be a chapter that could fit in that one, but I'm going to make this a chapter. And then all of a sudden, I started recording audios that would start in the book. But the catalyst habit that moved me was the idea of writing the chapters out. The catalyst habit of drinking the gallon a day was to get the 1 liter of water by my bed. Right. And to stop deliberating, stop delaying, stop, stop strategy sessions that end up being procrastination sessions. Okay? So huge, huge deal. Third, this is a big one. Identify the biggest obstacle or distraction to you getting the goal done. What will likely be the biggest obstacle or distraction? Because really, oftentimes in life, it's not about just adding a new habit for a goal. It's about eliminating one that's obstructing our outcome. So part of what we've already created is a catalyst habit, so it's creating a new habit. The third thing then is identify what the obstacle is or the biggest distraction. So could that distraction be Netflix? Could it be your phone? Could it be a particular room you're in? Right. Could it be a person? Could it be a thought? Right. Could it be something else you're doing that's no longer important to you, that's taking up the time that is required to do this new thing you want to do? But if you don't identify what's obstructing you, what the distraction is, oftentimes you will revert back. But you're a pretty powerful person immediately when you've got specificity to your outcomes, Right? That's a big deal. You've developed a catalyst step or habit and now you removed and identified the biggest obstacle or distraction. That's a huge thing. And maybe the biggest obstacle distraction is your lack of self confidence. And you need to immerse yourself in personal development as you get going. But to some extent, if you can. Like for me, I know for the most part my distraction is getting into doing things that I call in the small. I get into the small things. I get into the weeds too much instead of staying in the big and creating the big things and doing the big things that move things? I would say also that prior to the change I've made recently with, you know, I've had some health challenges. So I've gotten off of social media, one of the best things I've done in a long time for, for my physical and mental health. But also it's eliminated a huge distraction. It's just, I can't imagine. You can't even begin to imagine how much time you have when you're not in this stupid phone, looking at stuff that doesn't mean anything. It's really incredible. Or that doesn't even make you feel good. Anyway, so that phone was. Maybe it's the news, right? Maybe it's. You're obsessing over the news. You know, it could be a TV show you're too caught up in. If you wonder whether or not you can build a new habit or not, or you could become obsessed with something. Think about the last time you fell in love with some TV show on Netflix or Amazon and you streamed 18 of them in a row. So you're pretty good at staying focused, aren't you? Right. You got pretty specific with what you wanted to do. But what that stuff can become is becomes the obstacle or distraction and not the thing that leads to our Success. And so identify that number.
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James Clear
4.
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Ed Mylett
Success leaves footprints. Listen, there's a pathway already there. There's no hacks or shortcuts to success, but there kind of are. I was getting a new phone yesterday, and the young man that worked in that store is 20 years old, and he's got a baby. I got to know him pretty well as we were sitting there. It ended up being a few hours of getting a new phone. And I just loved him. And he had so many questions for me, you know, about success in life. And he just wants to be somebody so badly. Like, he's got a fire burning in him that I didn't see with other people that worked in there, but I did see in him. He's. You know what I mean? That special one. He's got a fire. He wants to be somebody, Wants his life to be awesome. He wants to compete. He wants to be successful. He wanted to be wealthy, like many of you do. And he said, is there Any tips, Mr. Mylett? Or hacks or shortcuts? I said, you know what? There's no shortcuts to success. And I said, well, there actually is. Success leaves footprints. He goes, what do you mean? I said, well, the quickest way is to find somebody who's already done what you want to do and get as close to them as you can. If getting as close to them as you can is reading their book, then you're closer than when you didn't read the book. If it's listening to their podcast, listen to their podcast, and maybe you're closer to them. They're not just me. Anybody doesn't. I'm not necessarily saying that with me or. I said, as a young person, see, if you can't go to an event or a seminar they have and best go to work for them, if you can go to work. He goes, I don't know what industry I want to get into. What do you think? And I named a few different industries. And I said, like. He said, well, maybe I'll get into real estate. I said, well, if it were me, and I was going to get into real estate, I'd find out who the top broker in this town is or in this area is. And I would go to work for them, and I'd work for as little as I have to work for to pay my bills, to get up close and to learn. And I told him, I said, there's this great Chinese proverb. And I said, the proverb goes like this. If you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back because they've got footprints they've left. And so success leaves clues, but it leaves footprints the exact steps to take. So go find somebody who has taken those steps and learn from them and duplicate it and make it your own. Don't copy them, model them. There's a difference. When you copy someone and you become like a knockoff version of them and it almost looks like you're doing an impression of another person. I've watched a lot of people do that. That comes across inauthentic, not very congruent, not real. Because we're all unique human beings with our own talents and nuances and idiosyncrasies. And so when you just verbatim copy somebody, it's just a weaker knockoff version. But modeling somebody is slightly different. That's learning from them and then making it your own to fit your personality, your intensity level, your talents and giftedness. So model someone who's left the footprints and that's much faster way to get to your goals. And the thing that you should be modeling in them are their habits or is their habits. What are their day to day habits they have that have delivered on the results they've gotten? Because oftentimes we're not sure what the habit is we need to form. But somebody else does know. And so whether that's reading their book, listening to their podcast, going to their event if they have one, or going to work for them. And for the record, I'm not talking about me. I mean, I wouldn't be the person to teach you real estate, I'm just giving you an example. So whatever that industry is, find the best person in it and get as much information from them as you possibly can. With the advent of social media, that is one of the great gifts that you could follow somebody who's in a particular industry or craft you want. And people are pretty free with giving away information now for free on their podcast, on their social media, so you can begin to learn from them. Number five, depth perception. I think most people don't realize that they're much closer to their dream and their goal than they realize. And so most people don't have a lack of vision or a goal. What they have is a depth perception problem. They think they're further away than they are from the goal because they think it's so far away. And by the way, it could be years away, but you think it's really far away. Because you think it's so far away, you behave like it. You've created thoughts, patterns and belief systems that will always keep it there, that far away, because you think it's so far away and it's a lie. The truth of the matter is you're probably one decision away, one mentor away, one new habit away, one new strategy away, one new catalyst habit away from completely changing your life. And so there's a depth perception issue for most people, which is they believe these things they want in their life are further. That doesn't mean it doesn't take a long time, doesn't mean you don't need aggressive patience where you're aggressive but patient. It does mean, though, you should be in a hurry. Not enough people are in a hurry. I meet a lot of people. They're too casual, they walk too slow, they talk too slow, they don't really believe anything's coming around the corner that's going to change their life. So as a consequence, they don't look for it. But what if you lived in anticipation that you're going to meet that next person or that next account, or that one client that's going to be you, tons of referrals, or that one idea, or that one thought, or that one mentor, or that one relationship or that one emotion, that one strategy. What if you lived in anticipation of that, that your death perception change. He said, I'm one away on the power of one more away. Then your reticular activating system goes to work on finding it because you believe it's true and it's important to you. If you're oblivious to it and you think it's not going to happen forever, those very things, people, places, thoughts, etc. Could present themselves to you and you will not see them. I always give this analogy, which I know you've heard before, but if you ever buy a new car, it becomes important to your race. I bought a Tesla once and I remember everywhere on the road I could see Teslas after I bought it, I mean, I'm driving my family crazy. There's another one, there's a red one, there's a white one. Other side of the freeway, three lanes over, there goes another right. You've all had that happen. Why? Because they became important to me because I owned one. All of a sudden my RAS reveals to me even things out of the corner of my eye over here, those things were always there. Those Teslas were always there. Why didn't I see them before? Because I. I didn't have them as important to me and I didn't expect to. So if your depth perception is that it's years and years away These Teslas of your life you will miss. And these Teslas come in the forms of the one idea, the one person, the one client, the one relationship, the one thought, the one emotion. You miss them, they were delivered to you. You didn't hear them, you didn't see them, or you didn't feel them because they weren't important to you and you didn't believe strongly. Your RAS is a prover. It's going to prove you right. It's going to find the things. It's almost like you have a belief system. It's like the top of a table. What the IRS is trying to do. The ras is trying to find references to prove you right, to put legs under it until it's stable. And then once it's stable, that's why, like if you're debating politics with somebody or something like that, they had an opinion and then their brain went to find the references to prove them right. And now they're like an immovable object and you shouldn't even be talking to them. You know what I'm talking about, right? So their RAs reinforced it, and then their algorithm reinforces it and then all their friends reinforce. They got all these legs under the table. They're an immovable object because their RAS is going to prove them right. So if you strongly believe your goals and dreams and vision are right around the corner, that you're the power of one more away, then your RAS goes to find those Teslas. But if you believe it's far away, it doesn't see them even when they present themselves to you. And that's why some people become mega successful and other people don't. It's not about talent. It's almost never about talent. It has a lot to do with our mindset, our mental programming, our vision and our goals and our habits. One of the things to deliver on a goal is the habit of accurate depth perception, accurately using your RAs to find things. And that just makes your goals important to you. See, go all the way back to number one. If I have non specific goals, I want to get in shape, I want to be wealthy. What's my RAS going to find to process that? Nothing. But if it's, I'm going to weigh 180 pounds and I'm going to be whatever, shredded. All of a sudden your RAS listens to the article on the new protein that's out, or sees the new workout, or introduces you to a trainer or a workout person or a book on something. They were always there, but now you're seeing them because they're important to you. Okay. And of course, maybe it creates new associations for you, make new friends that are in that space and you're elevated because of that. So depth perception matters. The RAS matters. Here's the last thing I'll tell you on that. I don't know actually know exactly what the data is on this, but there's a bunch of data that suggests that anything a human being gets focused on for a year, they become in the top 5% in the world at that craft. Isn't that fascinating? The power of a human being who becomes obsessively focused over a year or two, ends up being in the top 5% of whatever that is that they choose to get obsessed with. You could have never, ever. Like, I'll give you an example. I never had ridden a horse in my life till about once when I was a little boy. But I knew nothing about horses a year or two ago, like literally nothing. Maybe three years ago. And then I started riding. I didn't know the difference between a. A bridal and a halter. I didn't know how to lunge a horse. I didn't know what posting was. I didn't know about hooves. I didn't know about, you know, the veterinary things, the chiropractic stuff with horses. I didn't understand the, the reigning aspects, using your legs as pressure, all these different things. But I became pretty obsessed with horses and riding horses. And although I'm not a great rider, I'm probably in the top 5%. Why? Because 90% of people don't know anything, right? So I've eliminated them right off the top. And then just the fact that, you know, I've gotten okay at riding there. I'm not ever going to be a roper or a jockey or any of those other kind of things. Those are the top 1 or 2%. I'm not going to get to that. But you know what? If I were 18 years old or 15 years old, maybe I could have got to the top 1 or 2%. But you can get to the top five at about anything with obsessive focus. I mean, if you know nothing right now, nothing at all about playing chess, never played in your life, but you came obsessed with playing chess. The rules of the game, you played it over and over again. You came, you read the books, you studied the pros. You may never be the grand champion, but you can get better than 95 of the people at it. And so don't underestimate total immersion in something and how great you could get at whatever it is, fitness, exercise, reading, podcasting, writing a book, starting a business, getting into any industry. I believe you could get into any industry as long as it takes advantage of some of your talents and giftedness. And if you become obsessed in that industry, you get the right mentor, you get specific on your goals, you eliminate the distractions, you have the catalyst habits in your life, you have the right depth perception. I believe you can get to the top 5% of that industry. Let me say that to you again. You could choose any new career. This is my opinion, with rare exception, as long as you have some giftedness towards that craft or proclivity for it, and start from scratch. And in a year or two, if you're obsessed with learning and growing and trying and doing all the things we're talking about here, I believe you can get to the top 5% of that industry. I believe the data suggests this. It may take a year or two, but you start to eliminate all the unfocused people. First off, you eliminate all the people not in that industry, then all the people who quit, then all the people who can't deal with the failure, then this, then that, and you start getting pretty darn good. I think you get to the top 5% and then from there it's a dogfight to who the best in the world is at anything. That requires hard work, refining of the game, good fortune, blessing, momentum. But top 5%, you can get there. And I think you ought to walk in with that type of confidence. I'm going to get into real estate. You know what, in a year or two, I think I can get to the top 5%. I'm going to get into finance, I'm gonna get into writing books, whatever it might be. I think you get to the top 5% if you do these things. I can't promise you that, but the data suggests just about anything, something as goofy as riding horses part time, you get to the top 5%, you eliminate all the people who don't do it, who aren't even trying, who've quit, and you slowly move your way up the ranks. Number six, where performance is measured, performance improves. Now that you've got your goals and you've got some of these habits that you're reinforcing, okay, you have to measure it. You have to measure your performance or that of other people. But let's just take you. You got to measure regularly. If you're changing that weight, we got to weigh in regularly, do your body fat regularly. You got to diagnose your workouts. Are you getting stronger? Are you getting weaker? What body parts are getting better? If you're starting to write a book, you've got to measure the progress of writing the book. If you should be having written 30% of the book by now, it needs to be measured over that period of time. If you're going to make $100,000 this year, you should be at X, Y, Z through the year. If you're going to save $1 million in your lifetime, you're measuring the amount of savings you have. If you're not measuring a performance regularly, it will not improve. But when you do measure something regularly, typically it improves. Go back to investing in that company. You want that company to be reporting to you if you've invested in it over time, of how they're doing, because if they don't, it's unlikely they're going to improve. Human beings, when they are measured, they improve. So whether you lead people or are leading yourself, one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself is by challenging yourself to have your performance measured. The numbers matter. The leaders board matter. The scoreboard matters. You got to have the courage to look at the scoreboard of your life. Look at the scoreboard of your weight loss, look at the scoreboard of your new business. Look at the scoreboard of your wealth, the scoreboard of your relationship. Where it's measured, it improves. When you hide from measuring it, it's not going to improve, so you gotta measure it. And lastly, seven, you have to have an appropriate celebration and recognition when you do achieve a goal along the way. See, listen, your brain needs to be rewarded appropriately when you achieve something. So if you, a lot of people, I did this when I was young. I would just achieve and go, okay, onto the next one, onto the next one, onto the next one. That's a formula for burnout. Because your brain eventually goes, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm not getting anything out of it. I'm getting no dopamine out of this. If I don't get any dopamine, I don't want to do it again. So you've got to give yourself appropriate celebrations and recognition if you're leading other people. Appropriate celebration, appropriate recognition for their achievements, and I'll talk about appropriate lastly in a minute. But what has to happen is your brain has to say, I got a reward, I got my dopamine hit. The good news is all the data tells us that we get more dopamine as we approach the finish line towards a goal, as we actually get when we get there. So just the pursuit of greatness can give you the dopamine that you're looking for. But when you get there, for most people, it falls off the charts. It's like a crash. It wasn't what I thought it would be. I'm on to the next one. I'll celebrate the next time. And you're training yourself to not really want to keep doing it over and over again. So you got to have appropriate celebration and you got to do recognition of yourself. Now on the other side of that, I've seen people with completely over the top celebration. They hit their best month ever in sales and they go to vacation for two weeks. Just when they've got momentum going. That's insane to me. You just created momentum. What you're doing is destroying your success, sabotaging it. So when you get back, you're back to ground zero again. So most people's problem is not that they don't appropriately celebrate a little bit, is that they overly celebrate. They celebrate too much, they flinch. They recognize because as they approach their finish line, they didn't set up a new goal and a new outcome that stretches them out even further. This is a major mistake. I got there and I just didn't know. No. As you're approaching the finish line, get there. Don't move it. Don't move the finish line. Because if you move the finish line, you never get there. You never get the dopamine. But when you the celebration, get there, celebrate and move it forward. What's the next thing? What's the next number? Where are we going next? And again, it's got to be specific. We got to eliminate distractions. We need a catalyst habit. We need these other things. But please, appropriately celebrate. The 20% of you won't celebrate at all. And you're eventually going to burn out and train yourself not to go for it. The other ones over celebrate. They take too much time in between. Right. They sabotage the very results they got. Usually most winners, real achievers don't celebrate enough. And people that are always going to struggle in their life, man, I, I remember this just coming up in biz. I was like, so you just had your best month ever and you took four days off or you just had your best quarter ever and you stopped doing all the things that created that quarter. Like you think you're done, like you think it's all going to work out now that you're over the hump, but you don't have to work like that anymore. Successful people do what they did to get there and more. The next time unsuccessful people stop doing what it required for them to get there in the first place and they do less. I never understood that. Let me say that to you again. I want you to evaluate you. You just hit your sales goal, you just hit your financial goal. What did you do to get there and what you did to get there. Do it again and more to produce the higher result. It's going to require more. But what most people think is they think, oh, I got there, I have to do that anymore. I've got momentum in a different position now. Things are okay, I'm past the scary phase. I don't think so. You got to do more than what it required. And that's why you'll see great athletes. I, I think of like the Kobe Bryant's and their work ethic of the 3am workout. Everybody on the team went to practice. He'd do that 3am workout, then go to the team practice, then come back after lunch, then again. And that's after winning championships, that's after the titles, that's after the recognition. And that's why he was Kobe Bryant and other very talented players, names we don't remember, they won a championship or they got to the NBA but for some reason they overly celebrated and they didn't re up their game. Here's what the great ones know, that the habits that got me there will keep me here and I'll have to create new habits and better habits to get me to the next level. The people that lose abandon the very habits that got them there in the first place. Is that crazy? Think about that again. If habits are what are delivering on it, you finally got your habits right. You finally produce the results and you stop the habit. You somehow think that it's just going to keep going. This is the delusion that's happening to people. And this is why most people are successful for a while and then they're not. And the reason they're not long term is they stop doing what got them there. Really successful people say these are the habits that got me here. What's the new even better improved habit that would get me higher and better. And so that's how you got to look at it. Upgrading your habits to get to the next level, not stop doing the things that got you there. And then the last thing, I just want to kind of give you the maybe the warning of, of someone who's a little bit further down the road. Something that happens to us insidiously when we achieve or when we get better. Ironically, getting better can actually cause us to be very hard on ourselves. Most people will never tell you this, because what happens is when you grow and get better as a person, you begin to look back at the former version of yourself and judge it and judge them and decisions or choices you made. Because now you've acquired more wisdom and information and maturity, maybe experience. We have a tendency to judge other people or judge ourselves unfavorably when in fact us three or four or five years ago didn't have this level of experience, didn't have that level of wisdom, didn't have the information or the maturity. So to judge yourself for lack of success in the past or failures in the past isn't fair to you because you didn't have all that wisdom. You didn't have the information. You hadn't been down the road. And also, to judge other people who have not acquired your level of wisdom yet, or information or experience isn't a healthy thing either, because someday, if they go down the road you've gone down, they'll acquire that as well. So just be guarded against judgment of your former self or judgment of other people so that you can keep that mindset. Yeah, I've been saying this lately so much. There's this great Gandhi quote that says, I will not allow you to walk through my mind with your dirty feet. And one of the things that have the dirtiest feet in life is judgment and assessment of ourselves or other people. It's one of the worst things you can do for your mindset. And so sometimes when we begin to achieve, we become more judgmental of other people because they're not where we are or friends of ours that haven't come along the same journey. Or we become judgmental of our former self. And none of that judgment is healthy nor justified and does not serve you. And so make sure you protect yourself from judgment as well. How do you create this new habit? What's brilliant is he's leveraging how your brain already is wired to work. And so what do we change? Do we change the cue? I know the answer. But do we change the cue to create a new habit? Do we change the routine? Do we change the reward? Do we keep two of the three? Do we keep one of the three? How do we create a new habit?
- [36:15]
Charles Duhigg
So this is known as the golden rule of habit.
- [36:17]
Ed Mylett
Yes. So good.
- [36:18]
Charles Duhigg
And what it says is, look at first, you can use willpower, right? You could white knuckle your way passing that lemon bar. You could white knuckle your way to going to the gym in the morning. And sometimes you have to.
- [36:31]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [36:32]
Charles Duhigg
But inevitably what happens is there's a setback. Right? You, your mother in law comes into town and you're really stressed out, and so you go eat like a whole plate of. Of lemon bars. Or, or you're just tired and you wake up and you don't feel like working out. And so you, your willpower is weak because willpower is like a muscle. It gets. It gets tired, it gets weakened, and you. So what's the right way to create the habit? Because the habit lets us do things without having to use willpower. Well, the key is, first of all, you have to diagnose the cue and the reward. Right? So let's, let's take your lemon bar. Let's take a more serious habit. What other habits do you have that you. That you've tried to change?
- [37:09]
Ed Mylett
Smoking cigars. Okay.
- [37:12]
Charles Duhigg
Okay. So what's the cue when you, when you start feeling that craving to smoke a cigar, what's the cue, do you think?
- [37:20]
Ed Mylett
Well, one, there's a visual cue. When I see them or anybody around me is smoking them, I think is one. And I've, I think stress. I think that when stress hits me, the cue for me is for some reason, if I touch that cigar and I put it in my mouth, I'm in chill out mode with my dudes. Even though. Even though the dudes may not even be there anymore. But some of the happiest times of my life have been when that cigar is in my hand or my mouth with my buddies on a golf course or just sitting around talking smack. So stress causes me to want to chill and relax. I think the cue is stress most of the time.
- [37:57]
Charles Duhigg
And the reward, you think, is that you sort of feel that, that relaxation. It's like this is a signal to yourself. Like, now it's time to put work away. Now I can relax. I can stop obsessing about the thing that's making me stress.
- [38:10]
Ed Mylett
Well, Charles, you just said something that's so profound. I've been. I gotta be honest with you. I've been smoking more and more cigars lately. As I've been working more and more, it's almost my one cue to break my work cycle. Wow, I didn't think about that too. You just said it.
- [38:22]
Charles Duhigg
Okay, so let's figure out, how do we change this habit, right? Because you know the cue and you know the reward. And what we want to find is we want to find a new behavior, new routine that corresponds to that old cue and that delivers Something similar to that old reward. So the cue I think doesn't have to change, right? You still need a break from work. Like you still need to get to the end of the day and say, okay, finished, like that's. Now I'm going to put it away. So let's keep the same cue. And the reward we want is something that makes you feel like you have permission to relax. What else in your life do you do that gives you permission, gives you just a sense of sitting there and saying, like, all right, like this is, this is the time when I kick up my heels and I feel, okay.
- [39:05]
Ed Mylett
We'Re cheating on this a little bit because I have been working on it based on the foundation of your work on this one thing. But I will tell you, the other time that I find myself in non work chill mode is when I drink coffee. I know that sounds odd, but I consider coffee still to be healthy for me the way that I drink it. So for me, the other time I'm like unplugged is usually in the morning or believe that I'll even drink coffee in the afternoon is when I unplug and relax. So I have been using the same cue with the same reward, but the routine has been having a cup of coffee for some reason that just puts me in peaceful state, disconnects me. And so I've been using coffee as that replaced routine, keeping the cue and the reward the same.
- [39:44]
Charles Duhigg
You know what else? I'm going to do it. And oftentimes cues are pretty easy to figure out, right? Rewards can be tricky. So sometimes we need to run these experiments because like a reward could be like one of 10 things. We got to figure out which one it is. My guess is that for you, not only does that cigar bring up the memory of kind of like good friends relaxation, but because coffee is doing something similar. My guess is, and this is pretty typical, is that part of the reward there is stimulation. Like literally like biochemical stimulation.
- [40:12]
Ed Mylett
I think in both cases it gives.
- [40:14]
Charles Duhigg
You a burst of energy, makes you feel good. That cigar nicotine we know does the exact same thing. It gives us a burst of energy. That's why people smoked for years, right? Because they actually liked it. And so my guess is that now it sounds like coffee is a great replacement habit for you. It's providing the same thing. But let's say we're now at like 6 or 7 in the evening and you're getting home from work. You can't have a cup of coffee. Now the question is like could you use decaf or maybe it's like all you need is like an Oreo cookie. Like not enough sugar to throw off your diet. Right. Maybe it's. It's not going to, like, totally mess up unless you're. Unless you're going hardcore keto. It's not going to totally mess up what's going on. But maybe that small bit of sugar is just enough to give you the stimulation that a cigar and coffee was providing.
- [40:58]
Ed Mylett
Really good.
- [40:59]
Charles Duhigg
And the question is, you just test it. You try, you know, today when you get home at 7 and you're craving a cigar and it's too late for coffee, you try a cup of decaf. Tomorrow you try a cookie and you just sort of run through these hypotheses until you figure out the thing. And there's going to be something that your brain's going to say, oh, you know what? It's just as good. It's the old cue and the old reward. I don't mind having a cookie instead of a cigar.
- [41:20]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. I got to tell everybody, Charles and I have never talked about this. Okay? So, you know, we didn't even know we were going to talk about this today. And I'm going to tell you how this has grown into such a. A habit that served me. Bro, you're brilliant. You just. I love brilliant people. So what I did is I like the taste of coffee. Like, I like coffee ice cream. I like coffee anything. And so I did do this. Number one, the. I either go with a decaf with protein, coffee flavored powder in my coffee. But here's the other thing. This is like, where it's just like completely flipped into a positive habit. I drink a coffee shake about 7:30 every single night. That's a protein shake. That's delicious to me. So I literally went from moving this thing from my. It's not that I don't have a cigar anymore. I do have cigar when I smoke on the golf course or something like that. But I went from. I've distilled it. Sometimes habits aren't eliminating something, it's reducing the something. Right?
- [42:09]
Charles Duhigg
Absolutely. Just having control over it.
- [42:10]
Ed Mylett
And I've gone all the way so that the cup of coffee earlier in the day and the coffee shake, which is a protein shake, and I got to get my protein in because I do lift weights at that time. And it's exactly Charles's formula, though the cue is the same, which is sort of a stressful thing or trying to get out of work. I've replaced that cigar that went to coffee to. Went to A protein shake now. And it gives me the same reward, euphoria. I get the sugar high. Everything that you've said from my protein shake, that's just so brilliant. And that's. Go ahead.
- [42:36]
Charles Duhigg
What I love about this is that you're exactly right. Being in control of your habits doesn't mean you have to give up cigars. It just means you decide when to have a cigar. Right? Rather than letting it happen to you. And because you now understand your own habits, because you understand the habit loop inside your own head, you can change anything. Like sometimes people ask me, so what's the difference between a good habit and a bad habit? Should the strategies differ? And the answer is, your brain doesn't distinguish between good habits and bad habits. Your brain just says habits. You decide which one is a good one or a bad one. Your brain just wants to automate everything it can. And so there are often times when a cigar is not a bad habit. When you're on the golf course when you want a cigar and it's time for a cigar and you're not doing it too much. And then there's other times when you, like, it just feels like it's controlling you instead of you making the choice yourself. And that's what this gives you. It gives all of us these tools to say, this is something I want to keep in my life, but I want to tone it down. This is something I want to bring into my life. I want to start exercising, and I haven't. How do I figure it out? Okay, I need to find a cue and reward for that exercise. It gives us control. And that's what's so, like, deeply meaningful, right? Is to have control.
- [43:46]
Ed Mylett
There's no exaggeration that it changes your life because you really are, your habits. So if I'm a person listening to this, this is so good. If I'm a person listen to this, you say, I don't. How do I identify a cue? Like, here's all I know. I know that I find myself getting down or I find myself not wanting to get up and go to work. Right? You know, I know that's not a habit that serves me. Or I. Whatever it might be, I concluded I'm going to be better with my children and be more loving, and I find myself saying something I regret to them on a regular basis. How do we identify? Because there are. It could be a room. It could be a sound. How do you start to look at your habit and go, what is the cue here? Like, the application of. That's not How. What would you say to that?
- [44:26]
Charles Duhigg
It's a great question. So. So there's a really easy method for this because like I said, cues are pretty easy. So first of all, identify what the behavior is that you want to shift, right? Search like. Like saying, like, be better with my kids. That's not really a habit. But when my kid. Sometimes I snap at my kids, right? Okay? So I know exactly what the behavior is. I want to stop snapping at my kids. Okay? So take an index card. And for the next three or four days, every time you feel the instinct to snap at your kids, every single time, it either happens or you just want. You just feel like you're going to write down five things you're going to write down because all cues fall into these five categories. For 95% of the time, a certain time of day, a particular place, a certain emotion, the presence of certain other people, or a preceding behavior that has become ritualized. So you're at dinner, one of your kids is like screwing around. They won't sit down. You just write down those five things, okay? So now the next morning, you have that same instinct. Now suddenly you want to snap at the kids again. And you write down those five things and you start to notice. Whenever I want to snap at my kids, it's because I'm feeling. Even before the kid does something, I'm feeling annoyed. Like, I'm either rushed and I'm stressed or I'm having a tough conversation with my wife about, like, money stuff, I start to notice. Okay? The cue seems to be I'm in a particular emotional place whenever I want to snap at my kid. And when I'm not in that emotional place, even if they're screwing around at the dinner table or doing whatever normally drives me crazy, if I'm calm and relaxed, I don't feel any need to snap on my kid. So now we know what the cue is. The cue for that is a particular behavior, a particular emotion.
- [46:11]
Ed Mylett
Very good.
- [46:12]
Charles Duhigg
And it might be. It might be. You know, you mentioned that at 7:30 you have that protein drink. So for you, the protein drink might be a certain time of day. It might be that other people. Whenever I get around gym, like, for some reason I like, I get really, like, worked up. I get really anxious. So your cue is gym. Now that doesn't mean that you're going to eradicate that cue from. In your life. You still got to be in meetings with Jim. You still got to like, you're still going to be annoyed sometimes at the dinner table. You're still going to be talking about tough things with your wife. But now you know what the cue is. And now part of you is a little bit on guard to say normally when I'm around this queue, I snap at my children. And probably the reward is that it gives me a sense of control. Right. I'm feeling like overwhelmed. I'm feeling like I'm talking about money and it stresses me out. I'm feeling out of control and I snap at my kid and now I feel in control. So now the question becomes what else can give you that same feeling of control? So when you're feeling annoyed, when you're feeling weak, when you're feeling stressed and you know that you're likely to snap at someone because you want to feel in control, because that's a reward it delivers. What other behavior gives you that same feeling? And it might be something as simple as just saying, hey, you know what, I'm feeling annoyed right now. Jimmy, I see us like crawling out of his chair and driving me nuts. Let's all just take a break. We're just going to control our breathing for 30 seconds.
- [47:34]
Ed Mylett
Really good.
- [47:35]
Charles Duhigg
Really Right. And that. And then suddenly, like suddenly you feel in control. You remind yourself you're in control and you've substituted that old habit with a new one.
- [47:43]
Ed Mylett
So I'm asking you hard stuff because this is really good. I think it's this awareness level. It's investing the time and trying to uncover what you said, that index card strategy. Okay. What preceded this couple times. Because that is truly what your cue is on a negative habit.
- [47:57]
Charles Duhigg
Well, and the thing is that remember that in that experiment the rats brains sort of turned off as they're running through the maze, right? This is why habits are so powerful, is because our brain turns off in the grip of a habit. So we so things that could be obvious to our spouse, things that could be obvious if we were paying attention, they're not obvious to us because our brain's turned off. That's what it's supposed to do in the grip of a habit.
- [48:19]
Ed Mylett
And that's sometimes why if it's a regrettable habit and not all habits are that you later go, why did I. What was I thinking? You weren't thinking. That's exactly what you were not thinking. You were in habit mode.
- [48:29]
Charles Duhigg
That's 100%.
- [48:30]
Ed Mylett
So I'm golfing yesterday. I'm telling these guys I'm interviewing this dude tomorrow that I wanted to talk to for a long time because the book made a massive my work. I already talk a lot When I work with people, like with athletes and stuff, on creating triggers, we create them. Create a trigger to put you into a state, right? Then there's a reward. So I didn't have your terminology, but I've used triggers and stuff like that for many, many years with getting people to get into a peak state. So I'm telling these guys about you, and I said, anything you want me to ask him? And I never asked. I never ask other people's questions on the show, but this question was so good from one of the dudes that I thought it was good. This is a person who owns a very prominent gym, like a lot of them. Lot, lot, lot. One of the top gyms on the planet. He goes, look, a lot of people that come to our gym want to work out right when they wake up, but they have a hard time creating the habit of waking up and finding themselves working out prior to work every day. They feel like they'd get a better workout in the morning, but they just don't seem to get their mojo going in the morning. I said, it's interesting because he has this thing that says, you know, you have a cue or trigger and then you have the routine you wish for, and then there's a reward. I said, I wonder if you could create. Could the. I don't know. The answer is why I'm going to ask you. Could the alarm going off become the cue that puts you into the routine of getting up, getting dressed, going to the gym? So the answer is, could the QB something that simple? And then lastly, how do you create a reward for something like working out?
- [49:53]
Charles Duhigg
So it's a good. Well, okay, so let me ask you. So. So do you work out every day?
- [49:56]
Ed Mylett
I work about five days a week.
- [49:58]
Charles Duhigg
Okay.
- [49:58]
Ed Mylett
Not about. I work out five days a week.
- [50:00]
Charles Duhigg
And do you do it in the morning, evenings? When's your. Tell me about your.
- [50:03]
Ed Mylett
I do it in the morning.
- [50:04]
Mike Bayer
Okay.
- [50:05]
Charles Duhigg
And for you? You do it right after you wake.
- [50:07]
Ed Mylett
Up, pretty close to it, within 30 minutes.
- [50:09]
Charles Duhigg
And have you got. When you wake up, that alarm goes off. Are your workout clothes. You know exactly where they are.
- [50:16]
Ed Mylett
My workout clothes are done. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in habit. I think that probably the reason I'm asking it this way is that my alarm is the cue. Okay. That puts me. I think it is. It could be putting the workout clothes on, but I have a sequence of things that I've done repeatedly that trigger this routine.
- [50:37]
Charles Duhigg
And that's great because, like, you don't need just one like, it's fine if you're trying to create this exercise habit. It's fine to create seven cues, right? Put your running shoes next to the bed so you see them. Put your layout, your workout clothes. All you got to do is slip them on, right? All that stuff. Now, here's my question for you. When you first started working out, what was the reward? Because when you first started. Sucks, right? Exercise is terrible.
- [51:00]
Ed Mylett
Before you. That's the part where I was challenging myself about the formula. To be honest with you, I don't recall the reward other than I do recall, because I didn't like working out. I didn't like getting sore. I didn't like sweating. I didn't see immediate results. So what was the reward? I was thinking to myself, I can only conclude that I felt good about myself, that I was doing something I had never done before. I remember consciously driving back early. This was like 30 years ago, but I drove to the gym back in those days. I do recall pretty early, like, one of the first few workouts I did going, well, Most people wouldn't do this, man, good job. I remember telling myself that, like, you're doing something most people wouldn't be willing to do right now. And I think that was probably a form of reward, was pride. Yes. Pleasure.
- [51:45]
Charles Duhigg
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure that's. I mean, what's interesting is you. You could have told yourself something else. You could have said, like, okay, so, like, thank goodness I got it done, or, you know, me and like, every other person I saw in the gym with me this morning, there's, like, literally tens of thousands of people who are working at the gym same time I am. Or you could have just said, like, okay, check it off. Got that done. But instead, what you did is you gave yourself a reward. You consciously decided to reward yourself. Now, my guess is, and you probably weren't even aware of this, if we were to go back, like, time travel, watch you. My guess is also, you did a couple of other things. You probably also, without even realizing it, you might have let yourself eat a little bit better that day, right? Maybe have a smoothie after that workout because you think you deserve it. Take a little bit of a longer shower, right? Like, let yourself really, like, kind of feel those endorphins. You were giving yourself rewards, both consciously and unconsciously to make that exercise powerful. Now, compare that to how so many people start to exercise. You say, tomorrow, I'm going to go for a run. And you wake up and you start. You start looking for your workout clothes. And you're thinking the whole time, like, I'm going to look like an idiot. I don't even know, like, where to run. Like, I'm going to look like. I don't. I don't have the right clothes. You finally get the clothes on, you go, you run for a little bit. You said, like, I'm going to do a mile. You end up doing half a mile, and you're, like, winded, and you, like, come home, and now you're running late, so you, like, jump in the shower as fast as you can. You, like, speed the kids to school, and you're like, get out of the car. Get out of the car. You, like, rush to your office. And now, for the first time, you can, like, sit down at your desk and catch your breath. And, like, you feel the sweat on your body and. And. And you realize you're, like, 10 minutes late to, like, the meeting. Most people punish themselves for exercising as they plan for the exercise. They don't plan for what happens after the exercise. They don't plan for that reward. You got in the habit of giving yourself a reward when you exercise, and part of it was deliberate and part of it was unconscious. But you gave yourself the space to have those rewards. And unless you do that, if you were super stressed, if you were rushing home from the gym that day because you got to get to some meeting and you hadn't planned for it, you wouldn't have thought, man, I did great today. I did the thing that nobody else is doing. You would have thought, God, I got to get home as fast as I can. You got to create that space for the reward in your life.
- [53:57]
Ed Mylett
Oh, everyone, you need to go back and listen to that again. That's it. That's the thing. That's the thing that causes people, I think, to not make this a habit. It's like, it's. They don't plan this. Wow, that's so good. Plan the space for the reward in anything you want to create for yourself. I was kind of controversial early on in personal development, where everyone's grind, grind, grind. I said, hey, look, I outwork everybody. But you have to give room for the reward to yourself for the celebration, or eventually your brain concludes, I don't want to do this. I'm getting no dopamine. I'm getting out of this.
- [54:30]
Charles Duhigg
So let me ask you now, now that you exercise five times a week, it's like, completely ingrained. What's the reward for you now? What do you feel or do after that workout?
- [54:41]
Ed Mylett
Well, it's Funny, you said the shower thing. One of my favorite things in the world is how good I feel in the shower after I train. And that just sort of reflects reflection of myself that. And now there's a pride thing where, like, I've been doing this for 30 years. I think there's a reward. I get multiple rewards. I get someone, you know, people telling you that you look great. That's a form of reward. Am I giving it to myself? But it is a reward. It's someone saying, hey, what are you asking me for advice on how to work out over the years? You know, at the gym, eventually there ended up being these stacks of rewards. I'd say the reward now is I feel physically strong. I remind myself that I'm physically strong. It's certainly being physical has now become even past a habit to part of my identity. I feel like it's a part of my identity. It's been so ingrained into me that in the absence of it, I don't feel like myself anymore. So that it's become that deeply ingrained. But I do. I am. It's funny because I didn't know your work, but I've always been pretty good at going, hey, man, this is great what you're doing, like consciously doing it. I give myself other rewards, though. What you said earlier, even the lemon bar thing, to be candid with you, I give myself permission to eat a certain way sometimes. And it's one of the rewards of having trained very hard, is, hey, man, I've burned a bunch of calories already. I've done this, this and this. I deserve the damn lemon bar.
- [56:01]
Charles Duhigg
Yeah. And that doesn't mean it's going to.
- [56:02]
Ed Mylett
Be a daily thing. Right?
- [56:03]
Charles Duhigg
Like, I don't, I don't deserve lemon bar every single day. But when I feel that craving, it's okay to give into it. It's a. I'm making a reward for myself because I know that, like, this lemon bar, like, this is not going to impact me. This one lemon bar, I've. I've banked away the self discipline to allow myself this. And that's a form of reward. And that's really powerful. And yet, you know, I, and I'm sure you see this all the time in your practice. America is a stoic nation. We are a nation that tries to, to bully ourselves into. Into productivity, into success, into accomplishment. And the truth of the matter is some of that is good, right? It's a great nation because we disciplined and then we have so much willpower. But the way that you Leverage that. The way that you take advantage of that is you give yourself time to enjoy the spoils of it.
- [56:53]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. And the truth is, what you're saying, this is what I want to get everybody to hear. You're doing this anyway. You're already rewarding yourself, possibly for routines that don't serve you. So this is something you're going to do, so you might as well acknowledge it. What's great about what you're doing is you're leveraging the brain as it is already wired. Right. That's why your work is so powerful. You're already giving yourself rewards for behavior. Sometimes you're already having cues that don't serve you into routines that don't serve you. So simply leveraging this. It's not nearly as difficult as it might seem if you'll take an inventory or create cues, create a routine, and have a reward. I also think some people are like, well, I should go to the gym. And like you said, everybody goes. This isn't something I should be patting myself on the back for. Not all rewards have to be a pat on the back. It could be that you just. There are days where I've had good workouts, and I'll find myself even doing what we're doing. I'm sitting here going, I feel good. My back doesn't hurt today. My abs feel strong. That's a form of a reward. It makes that absolutely. So it's this reward feature. And just so we're all clear on what Charles has been saying, if you want to change habit, you can keep the same cue, right? You can keep the same reward and change the routine in the middle. And that's a formula for change. I want to ask you a question because I did one of your exercises.
- [58:09]
Mike Bayer
Okay.
- [58:10]
Ed Mylett
But I want to walk the audience through it.
- [58:11]
Mike Bayer
Let's do it.
- [58:12]
Ed Mylett
Because this book, guys, you're going to get it, and you're going to love it, and you're going to love it because it's actionable. I love actionable stuff. So there's a best self, sort of. What do you call it? Exactly what we're going to walk through right here.
- [58:24]
Mike Bayer
So best self is your authentic self. So best self is your truth, your honest truth. Like, my best self is a wizard who is a thousand years old. He's actually tattooed on me. Right?
- [58:34]
Ed Mylett
Look at this on YouTube. If you're not watching this, guys, you'll have to go to YouTube.
- [58:37]
Mike Bayer
Yeah, you're too. I mean, it's not done. This guy, Nico Hurtado, did the tattoo. He Takes forever to get into.
- [58:43]
Ed Mylett
Beautiful, though.
- [58:43]
Mike Bayer
I've been freaking waiting forever. I mean, the guy's so hard to get into.
- [58:46]
Ed Mylett
It's beautiful.
- [58:47]
Mike Bayer
Thank you. Thank you. It's not done yet.
- [58:49]
Ed Mylett
So you've named Staff. You've named him.
- [58:52]
Mike Bayer
My best self is Merlin. It's a wizard that's a thousand years old. When I walk into a meeting or when I present myself, that is me being my best self. It's like wisdom, honesty, truth, alignment, living in the moment, kindness, love. And I think, you know, like, our parents give us names.
- [59:10]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [59:11]
Mike Bayer
Right. And. But we can name ourselves whatever we want at our core, and we can create. I find that being able to create that character in that story, it creates a safe place for our minds to go sit into. And so. And it's something that a kid can do or a teenager or an adult. Let's go through yours.
- [59:35]
Ed Mylett
I love it. So I want you to walk them through it as if I hadn't prepped first. I'm saying, everybody, this is so huge. Everyone, I've been talking for 20 years about. @ any time in your life, you can turn the page and become a new character in your life.
- [59:47]
Mike Bayer
Right.
- [59:48]
Ed Mylett
That we repeat these old stories about ourselves and. And our book of our life starts to look like one chapter that just kind of runs together. What a boring book to read. If it was just one chapter about the same character. There should be evolutions. Right. And I'm always talking about, change the character. Change the character. And then I read your book and I'm like, this is an actual technique to name and change the character that is you and identify it. So, guys, this is so awesome, the way that you do this. So the first step is to do what?
- [60:15]
Mike Bayer
The first step is to write out description.
- [60:17]
Ed Mylett
Okay, so, so. And how do we do that?
- [60:19]
Mike Bayer
You write out. You can look at times in your life when you felt like, wow, this is life, or, you know, that's the best part of yourself.
- [60:29]
Ed Mylett
Okay.
- [60:29]
Mike Bayer
It's not outcome driven.
- [60:31]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [60:32]
Mike Bayer
Sometimes you've got stuck on outcomes.
- [60:33]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [60:34]
Mike Bayer
And as you talk about, sometimes the outcomes happen 60 or 90 days down the road or two years down the road. So it can't just be, oh, that outcome. It's when you feel good about yourself.
- [60:44]
Ed Mylett
It's sort of like adjectives to describe the best you.
- [60:46]
Mike Bayer
You got it. Okay. Adjectives to describe the best you. What did you write down?
- [60:49]
Ed Mylett
Well, I wrote a few down. I did this alone.
- [60:53]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [60:53]
Ed Mylett
I think it would have been cool to do with my family, but I did it alone. And I'LL be honest with you. It was empowering. When I'm my best, I'm these things and it's like I never even. Me. And I coach people all the time. I never just take the time. What is the best adjectives to describe. Describe me when I'm the best me.
- [61:09]
Mike Bayer
Right.
- [61:10]
Ed Mylett
So I put peaceful, kind, patient, confident, prayerful, strong, decisive, relentless, non judgmental, encouraging. I wrote leader. I wrote listener or listening, focused, present in the moment and funny. Those were the best things I like about me when I'm the good me.
- [61:37]
Mike Bayer
Got it. And so then you took that description and you felt pretty good about this. This feels like you're in alignment. Right?
- [61:43]
Ed Mylett
I love when I'm that guy. Yeah.
- [61:45]
Mike Bayer
That's you.
- [61:45]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [61:45]
Mike Bayer
At your core. That's you, right?
- [61:47]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [61:47]
Mike Bayer
And so now then you drew it.
- [61:49]
Ed Mylett
I drew it. And I. It's just. It's just what it is. You said whatever it is. So he told me it could be whatever it is. It's kind of a Superman. Cool. And I, I'm, you know, I even have my family have told me that I'm like a Superman when I'm the best version of me. And I. You also wanted me to name it. Name him. And it's Superman.
- [62:06]
Mike Bayer
That looks amazing.
- [62:07]
Ed Mylett
That's my guy, by the way. And that's as good as I can draw. So I love the face. So the real me is a Superman.
- [62:13]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [62:14]
Ed Mylett
And he's all these things. And I would encourage every single person listening to this or watching this to do exactly this exercise. We're not done yet either, everybody, but. But take an inventory. What are the adjectives that describe the best you? And then you want them to draw a picture of it.
- [62:31]
Mike Bayer
Draw it. You name it. Because it's a great way too to go. Am I walking into the room as Superman? Am I talking to my kid as Superman? Am I handling my relationship as Superman?
- [62:44]
Ed Mylett
Or Merlin?
- [62:45]
Mike Bayer
Or Merlin. So that's really understanding authentically who you are. And that's how we kind of start off. Best self. The book is figuring out who are you and let's name it. And so that's our starting point, the compass. So the next part of the exercise is to figure out what is currently pressing into ourselves, our own psyche, that we know is not authentically who we are. So it's that part of us that goes, I shouldn't have said that. I don't know why I feel this way. Oh, why am I beating myself up? What am I saying to myself? It's like the committee in the head that we can't shut off. Well, what is it saying? And again, we want to write down the adjectives of what we call your anti self. And so you did that, Ed.
- [63:30]
Ed Mylett
My anti self is, you know, it was kind of cool. I noticed something and maybe do you find most people are. Have an easier time writing down the good or the bad?
- [63:41]
Mike Bayer
Bad.
- [63:42]
Ed Mylett
Bad. I would assume that too. One thing I kind of liked is you loved it. I had a better time. I actually had an easier time writing down the good things.
- [63:50]
Mike Bayer
That's great.
- [63:50]
Ed Mylett
That's shown the work I've done on myself because I would assume it's 80, 20, 90, 10 people. Like I can name you.
- [63:56]
Mike Bayer
80 people normally don't have this long of a list. Although I think this is incredibly healthy, right. To have a long list as being your best.
- [64:03]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. And I would. I think everybody writing this, the vast majority of you are probably going to have a really easy list of the negative things. And I think the more that you repeat, you utilize this exercise and the techniques that I teach and that Mike teaches, I bet you over the long term, you're gonna have an easier time writing the good ones.
- [64:18]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [64:18]
Ed Mylett
And I think that's when you know you're being that best self more often.
- [64:21]
Mike Bayer
You got it.
- [64:22]
Ed Mylett
Because I live. I think I live. I'm definitely this guy a lot, but I think I live with that guy. Well, let's.
- [64:28]
Mike Bayer
We love Superman.
- [64:29]
Ed Mylett
Okay.
- [64:29]
Mike Bayer
I mean Superman, Ed.
- [64:30]
Ed Mylett
Yeah, this guy here.
- [64:32]
Mike Bayer
Let's hear about the descriptions of your anti self.
- [64:34]
Ed Mylett
Joining judgmental, impatient, scared, angry, indecisive, anxious, gossiper, distant, serious complainer, self centered. And now that I'm naming them, I could name some more, actually, but those are all the anti me.
- [64:59]
Mike Bayer
Yeah. And you drew the same exercise you.
- [65:02]
Ed Mylett
I drew him. And he's a guy with. Now, I don't mean to use bad language, everybody, but he's a guy with a big old head and a hat with two phallic symbols coming out of the side of them. Yeah.
- [65:14]
Mike Bayer
Is that a penis coming out?
- [65:15]
Ed Mylett
It is. There's two of them on each part of his hat. And his name is actually Richard Cabeza, which is Dick, and in Spanish, cabeza is head. So you kind of get the name. But we call him Richard Cabeza. Got it, Got it.
- [65:30]
Mike Bayer
No, this is great.
- [65:30]
Ed Mylett
So negative.
- [65:31]
Mike Bayer
We have Superman. We have Superman and Richard Cabeza. Richard Cabeza. Okay, great. And this is fantastic. And so what we start off in best self is we go, okay, who's your best self? And who do we know is gonna get in the way of you even finishing the book, who's gonna get in and be like, oh, this is. This is a bunch of BS and I don't have time for that. And I'm good. And, you know, just so we help identify those parts so that we can navigate the book. And so what. What I find helpful once people do this is to figure out, okay, how do I get more of him? Yeah. And what situation currently is bringing out the most of him. So for you, Ed, what would you say currently, Richard Cabeza, when. What situation do you. You feel like currently, where you go, oh, this comes out.
- [66:25]
Ed Mylett
Anything. Anything that feels stressful to me. Richard Cabeza likes to rear his head. No pun intended. Anything stressful. And I would say something specific with that would be if I'm gonna. If I'm prepping for or driving to something I think I'm not prepared for, that guy comes out. That guy is super judgmental. He likes to gossip. He can get pretty anxious and scared and fearful. He doesn't pray. He isn't present. I'm always project. That guy likes to project into the future all the time what he should be worrying about.
- [67:02]
Mike Bayer
Right. So he can't be in the moment.
- [67:04]
Ed Mylett
Not in the moment.
- [67:04]
Mike Bayer
Okay.
- [67:05]
Ed Mylett
That's the. If I could. If I could identify one thing that causes most of those other adjectives to happen, it's pressure or stress. And I'm not present.
- [67:13]
Mike Bayer
Got it.
- [67:14]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [67:14]
Mike Bayer
And so because when Superman comes flying through in those situations, you feel.
- [67:22]
Ed Mylett
I feel incredible. I feel strong. I feel peaceful.
- [67:24]
Mike Bayer
Right.
- [67:24]
Ed Mylett
I feel like a leader.
- [67:25]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [67:26]
Ed Mylett
I feel like I'm doing what I'm called to do.
- [67:29]
Mike Bayer
Right.
- [67:29]
Ed Mylett
You know what I was born to do? And I feel loving in that space.
- [67:33]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [67:34]
Ed Mylett
Yeah. That's a word that should have been in there.
- [67:35]
Mike Bayer
Loving.
- [67:36]
Ed Mylett
Yeah.
- [67:36]
Mike Bayer
And so in best self worth, what we do is then we take you through what's called the seven spheres, which is an acronym I created, which someone rates their social life. Social life, personal health, education, relationships, employment, and spiritual. And they line. You just rate it from a 1 to 10, and it's full of exercises. And you go, okay, well, in all these areas of my life, how often do I feel like I'm being my best self? Because usually what happens for us is once we put down on pain paper and walk through it, we can have a road map.
- [68:09]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [68:10]
Mike Bayer
And it doesn't become just theory.
- [68:11]
Ed Mylett
Yes.
- [68:12]
Mike Bayer
And so can I give you an example of that?
- [68:15]
Ed Mylett
How powerful this is? Everybody's listening is like. That seems pretty basic. Everyone. Y' all, trust me, do it.
- [68:20]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [68:21]
Ed Mylett
Just go through the exercise. Even Richard Cabeza. And I almost laugh at that guy now. It's why I gave him the name I gave him. He's hilarious to me. And. And I don't want him in my life. He's like a joke.
- [68:32]
Mike Bayer
Joke.
- [68:33]
Ed Mylett
Right? And so in my case, I want to. If I'm gonna have shame, I'm gonna shame that dude outside of me. I'm not gonna carry it myself. And so I gotta tell you, though, last night, I did this last night.
- [68:45]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [68:45]
Ed Mylett
And I had fallen asleep. Perfect little example. And you stack these things over life. So you gave my family a gift last night, unknowingly. Right.
- [68:53]
Mike Bayer
Okay.
- [68:54]
Ed Mylett
And so what I did was I had fallen asleep and actually posted it. My Lily was sleeping next to me. I was extremely tired, and I every night go in and kiss my daughter good night and say a quick prayer. And last night, I was laying in bed and I was tired, and I knew the lights were off in her room, and I woke up tired, and I went, I'll just do it tomorrow night. Right? And immediately I thought about, what would Superman do?
- [69:19]
Mike Bayer
Huh?
- [69:20]
Ed Mylett
Superman would get up. He'd go in, even if she's asleep, and I'd kiss her, and I'd pray with her even if she was asleep. I didn't want to get up. I was tired, and Richard Cabeza was taking over. And I literally thought about Superman and Richard Cabeza, and I chose to be Superman. And I got up and I walked in, and she was actually awake, right? And I said, hey, boo, I love you. And I gave her a kiss, and she gave me a hug, and we said a quick prayer. And actually, she had something she wanted to ask me. And had I not gone in there, she wouldn't have been able to ask me that question. And so that if this did nothing other than that one thing, the rest of my life, it was worth it. But I can already tell, even today, prepping for our interview and getting no better, I'm like, I think I'm ready. And I went, well, what would Superman do? Superman would go another little extra inch here. Superman would be more relentless, more prepared. Right. More present. And so it's affected even how we're doing this today.
- [70:10]
Mike Bayer
Yeah. And you're welcome. No, I'm grateful that you did this. It means a lot because you took it on your own initiative. I didn't ask you to. And you clearly dig in when you have people come on your show. And the thing about Richard Cabeza is the interesting thing with the ego that I Found is when you build out the character, if you say to someone, okay, just don't be so angry, Ed. You know, like, let's see. Your wife's like, ed, don't be so angry. She calls you Richard Cabeza. You may have a split second of like. And then you'll start to laugh.
- [70:45]
Ed Mylett
It's awesome.
- [70:46]
Mike Bayer
And it's not that serious because you don't even want to feel that way. And you get to get called out on your stuff in a way that's playful and not.
- [70:55]
Ed Mylett
What a great exercise to do even at work where your co workers are like, hey, Richard Cabeza, cut it out.
- [71:01]
Mike Bayer
Yes.
- [71:01]
Ed Mylett
Right. Like, that's awesome. I love that. I love that. So you can do that in your family. Work. Family. Your work life.
- [71:07]
Mike Bayer
Yeah. And you can do it with your kids. And it becomes revealing of how they view themselves. Yeah.
- [71:12]
Ed Mylett
So good, brother. Thanks. So good. Thank you for that.
- [71:15]
Mike Bayer
Yeah, of course.
- [71:15]
Ed Mylett
I. Dude, I gotta be honest with you. Like, I love simple, actionable things that the audience can take with them and do. And guys, you'll be different after you do this, and your family will be different if you do it together.
- [71:25]
Mike Bayer
Yeah.
- [71:26]
Ed Mylett
What a great gift, man. Thank you so much. Your work Rose, is. I think I'd call it groundbreaking, because I don't think anybody's really approached habits the way that you have. But let's back up a little bit just for a second, because I think it's important for people to understand this concept. You teach that everyone's always talking about taking massive action. You take massive action towards what you want, you're like, yeah, you should do that. But your concept of getting 1% better is much more believable for most people. And so just address that for a second. Why 1% better every day? And how does a habit do that?
- [72:01]
James Clear
Sure. So first of all, I think there's no reason that you can't be really ambitious. Right. Like, I consider myself to be a very ambitious person. I think it's just that you're oscillating or switching between these two modes, you know, like when you're in planning mode, when you're in strategy mode, sure. You can be very ambitious and be very aggressive and, you know, stretching yourself and reaching. But when it comes time to take action and execute, you have to scale it down to something you can achieve that day, you know, like the. In. In one sense, the biggest unit of time you could ever do something out a single day. Cause then you got to go to sleep, you know, and then you have to wake up again. And do it the next day. So unless you're playing, you know, at some point, there's a limit. You can only stay up for 48 hours or 72 hours, like, you know, and then you break. So that's the largest possible unit that you could ever do a single thing in. And I think more realistically, most of the time, the truth is, you know, you got about an hour or maybe you got two hours to work on this, and then you gotta go move on to something else. So we don't have big chunks of chunks of time available to us. We need to scale things down into pieces that we can actually work on and execute. So the way that I think about it is when making plans, think big. When making progress, think small. And getting 1% better each day is a way to encourage that. The story that I like to tell, and this is something that I kind of kick atomic habits off with, the story of the British cycling team. And you know, for many years, British cycling was very mediocre. They had never won a Tour de France, which is the premier race in cycling. They had won a single gold medal over like a hundred year Spanish. And they brought this new performance coach in named Dave Brailsford. And he had this concept that he called the aggregation of marginal gains. The aggregation of marginal gains and the way that he described it was the 1% improvement in nearly everything that we do related to cycling. So they started looking at a bunch of things you would expect a cycling team to focus on. Like they put slightly lighter tires on the bike, or they designed like an ergonomic seat for the riders. They had the riders wear a little feedback sensor, little chip to see how each individual responded to training. Then they would adjust the practice schedule. But then they started doing like these little 1% changes, these small improvements that nobody else was really thinking about. Like they hired a surgeon to come in and teach the riders how to wash their hands to reduce the risk of catching a cold or getting the flu. They have this big trailer, like a semi trailer that carries a lot of bikes in it to major events. And they painted the inside of that truck trailer white so that they could spot little bits of dirt and dust that might get in the gears and degrade the performance of the bikes. They have two different types of fabrics. They've got like indoor racing suits and outdoor racing suits. And they tested those fabrics in a wind tunnel. And they found out that the indoor fabric was lighter and more aerodynamic. So they asked all of their riders to wear that fabric. They even had all their different Riders test, you know, like a bunch of, like, maybe a dozen different types of pillows, and then they see which one led to the best night's sleep for each person. And then once they figured that out, they brought that on the road with them to hotels for the Tour de France and so on. And, you know, Brailsford said something like, if we can actually do this right, if we actually make all these 1% improvements related to cycling, then I think we can win a Tour de France within five years. He ended up being wrong. Uh, they won the Tour de France in three years, and then they repeated again the fourth year with a different rider. And then after one year break, they won three more in a row. So after having never won for, like, 110 years, you know, they went five of the next six. And I like to use that story as an introduction to this idea of getting a little bit better, making these 1% improvements for a couple of reasons. The first is it shows you that excellence a lot of the time, maybe we can even say most of the time, is not actually about radical change. It's about a commitment to accruing small improvements day in and day out. Secondly, and I think this is also crucial, it encourages you to focus on trajectory rather than position. There's a lot of discussion about position in life. How much money is in the bank account? What is the number on the scale? What is the current stock price? What are the quarterly earnings? There's all this measurement around our current position. But what getting 1% better each day encourages is to focus on your trajectory instead. Am I getting better? Is the arrow pointed up and to the right, or have we flatlined? Am I getting 1% better or 1% worse? Because if you're on a good trajectory, all you need is time. If you have good habits, time becomes your ally. You just need to let time work for you. But if you have bad habits, time becomes your enemy. And every day that clicks by, you kind of dig the hole a little bit deeper. And so it's very much at the core. It's about encouraging you to focus on trajectory rather than position.
- [76:31]
Ed Mylett
How did you get to 37.78 times better? Where'd that ratio number come from?
- [76:36]
James Clear
Yeah, yeah, it's just math, right? So if you get 1% better each day for a year, so 1.01 to the 365th power, then it gets 37 times better by the end of the year. If you get 1% worse, 0.99 to the 365th power, then you drive yourself almost all the way down to zero. Now, you know, look, real life is not exactly like a mathematical equation, right? Your habits are not exactly like this, this formula. But I do think that it highlights an important concept which is the difference between making a choice that's 1% better or 1% worse on any given day is relatively insignificant. It's very easy to dismiss. And this is, I think, one of the things that makes it underappreciated or underestimated. You know, like what is the difference between eating a burger and fries for lunch today or eating a salad or you know, going to the gym for 30 minutes or not? Well, on any given day, not a whole lot. You know, your body looks the same in the mirror at the end of the night, scale hasn't really changed. It's only two or five or ten years later that you turn around, you're like, oh, you know, those daily choices really do add up. And I think you see this pattern again and again throughout life. Like take knowledge for example. The person who always reads for an extra 10 minutes each day. Well, look, reading for 10 minutes a day does not make you a genius, right? It's very easy to dismiss, but the person who always does that over five or 10 or 20 years, yeah, really meaningful difference in wisdom and insight. Productivity is the same way, you know, like the person who gets one extra task done each day, doing one extra thing does not make you an all star. But again, over a 10 or 20 or 30 year career, that can be a really meaningful difference in output. So this pattern shows up again and again. What starts out small, relatively easy to dismiss, compounds, or turns into something much more significant over time.
- [78:23]
Ed Mylett
The biggest word, bro, I don't think most people take into account. You and I are both college baseball players, good ones, but neither one of us were, you know, surefire first round draft pick, major league players. And I think most people don't take into account in their life the compound effect. I don't think they understand it in money. I don't think they understand it in their bodies, both positive and negative. And I don't think they understand their identity or in just in habits. The compound effect in life of allowing small things to stack up over time has a multiplier effect. And one of the things that I feel like in your work and by the way, your work is I'm all, we're a few minutes in here and I'm like, this is so good. And the reason is one, I believe most people believe they can get 1% better every day. I don't think most people believe that they can completely transform everything in one big leap. I think there's a multiplier, though. Do you agree that between doing the right things 1% or just better habitually every single day, not only are you actually making deposits of doing things correctly or better, but there's a part of your identity that starts to change over time about how you view yourself. That I am that guy who doesn't eat the hamburger and fries when he can choose to eat the other one. And you stack those choices and behaviors up over time and you start sort of believing maybe you deserve something that you didn't deserve prior. Isn't there a factor of that? Don't you think as well?
- [79:38]
James Clear
This is a huge part of kind of my philosophy and book, this idea of what I call identity based habits. But essentially the concept is, and this, I think this is the real reason that habits matter. The surface level reason that habits matter is they help you be more productive, they help you make more money, they help you lose weight and get fit. And look, habits can do all those things, and that's great, But I think the deeper reason that they matter is that every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become. And so when you perform these small habits, when you take these little actions, you're casting votes for a certain aspect of your story or a certain element of your identity. In a sense, every time you perform a habit, that's how you, like, embody that aspect of your identity. So, you know, when you make your bed in the morning, you embody the identity of someone who is clean and organized. Or if you write one sentence, you embody the identity of someone who is a writer. And this is why it can be valuable, you know, even to like do one push up. It's like, no, that does not transform your body, but it does cast a vote for, I'm the type of person who doesn't miss workouts. And eventually, as you build up evidence of that story, as you start to cast more votes for that identity, you have like actual proof to believe this, right? This is, I think this is a little bit different than you'll often hear something like fake it till you make it. And I don't necessarily have anything wrong with fake it till you make it. It's asking you to believe something positive about yourself, but it's asking you to believe something positive without having evidence for it. And we have a word for beliefs that don't have evidence. We call that delusion, right? Like at Some point, your brain doesn't like this mismatch between what you say you are and what you're actually doing. And so my argument is to let the behavior lead the way. To start by meditating for one minute or doing one pushup or writing one sentence and letting that be undeniable proof that in that moment you were a meditator or an athlete or writer or whatever it is. And ultimately, I think this is the real value that habits provide, which is they reinforce your desired identity.
- [81:39]
Ed Mylett
Boy, it's just so good, brother. So good. I don't know why I'm just meeting you now because our overall belief system about change is so very, very similar. And we are going to talk a bit about how to actually begin to establish habits. But before we do that, I want to talk about the concept of establishing one. Because you said something about the one pushup, reading or listening to something you're talking about, about the guy who would go to the gym for just five minutes and work out. And you said something about this casting the vote for who you want to be or who you're going to be. That was powerful. Right? But you're saying before a habit can be, and I don't want to quote you incorrectly, but I want you to elaborate on it because this is profound to me. I mean, it's obvious. But if you don't step back and get away from it and look at it, you just really don't realize the truth of it. Before a habit can be improved, it has to actually be established. And I think what happens is you tell me what you think. Beginning of the year, I'm going to lose £50. I'm going to do this, I'm going to eat, then I'm going to starve myself to 500 calories. So it's not a 1% improvement or I want to get up early. I'm going to get up two hours earlier starting tomorrow instead of get up 15 minutes earlier. Right, get up a minute earlier. So talk about that from just the concept for everyone to just they can take control of their life right now by just the establishment of a habit. Right? Or right?
- [83:04]
James Clear
Yeah, definitely.
- [83:05]
Ed Mylett
Right.
- [83:06]
James Clear
So one of the concepts I talk about in the book is this. One of the strategies is this idea of what I call the two minute rule, which is where I encourage people to build a habit that takes two minutes or less to do. So you take whatever you're trying to do. Read 30 books a year becomes read one page or do yoga four days a week becomes take out my Yoga mat. And sometimes when I mentioned that idea, people resist a little bit because they're like, okay, buddy, you know, I know the real goal isn't just to take my yoga mat out. I know I'm actually trying to do the workout. So if this is some kind of mental trick, then, like, why would I fall for it? Basically. Well, I tell the story of this guy Mitch that you mentioned, this guy who I talk about him in Atomic Habits. He went to the gym. He's lost over a hundred pounds, kept it off for more than a decade. And when he first started going to the gym, he wouldn't stay for longer than five minutes. He had this little rule. He had to leave after 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 it sounds ridiculous, right? It sounds silly. You're like, obviously he's not going to get the guy the results that he wants. But if you take a step back, you realize that he was mastering the art of showing up, right? He was becoming the type of person that went to the gym four days a week, even if it was only for five minutes. And this gets us to that deeper truth about habits that you just mentioned, this idea that a habit must be established before it can be improved. It has to become the standard in your life before you can optimize it and scale it up into something more. And I don't know why we do this. We get very all or nothing about our habits. We're so focused on finding the perfect business, business idea, or the best workout program, or the ideal diet plan that we spend all our time theorizing and researching and looking for a better way. And instead, if we could just master the art of showing up, even if in the beginning it was less than what you had hoped to do, you're establishing a foothold, you're building some small progress that you can advance off of. And it reminds me of Ed Lattimore has that great quote where he says, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. And, man, there are a lot of things in life that are like that, you know, like the. The hardest part is getting started. The hardest part is establishing the routine, even if it's a lower level baseline than what you ultimately hope to achieve. But the reality is, if you can't become the type of person who masters the art of showing up, even if it's just for five minutes, then it doesn't matter how good the plan is, it doesn't matter how great your theory is. And so I think the two minute rule pushes back on that perfectionist tendency a little bit and just encourages you to master the art of showing up.
- [85:36]
Ed Mylett
So good I'm right. I just finished writing a book called One More, and I get asked that sometimes too. And one of the things that I wasn't thinking about it from this perspective when I wrote it, but you can become the kind of person that says, look, I'm going to do. It's my bench press. I'm going to do 10, you do one more, you do 11. I even say if you're riding the treadmill for 45 minutes, you can build that habit of, okay, I'm going one more minute. I do 46. What's the difference in that minute? Well, you stack up that minute over a year. There's a difference. But also your identity begins to change as, and I'm not telling you, go from 45 minutes to three hours on a treadmill. So the PR, actually, as I was doing this, I wasn't thinking of it from this perspective, but now that I'm thinking about it, actually our work is sort of converging, you know, almost in the exact same space. It.