Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[Music]
hello
and welcome to the moonshots podcast it
is a very
atomic episode 85.
i'm your co-host mike parsons and as
always
i'm joined by mr atomic himself mr mart
pierce and freeland good morning mark
good morning mike
what a beautifully wintery sydney day
it's the perfect day to
get ourselves into creating new habits
new intentions new systems in place i'm
excited for today how are you feeling
well i'm i'm just love i mean we are we
are talking
about a subject today that is very dear
and close
to my heart mark so don't hold back any
further
why don't you share with our audience
who we're going to be diving into
what atomically amazing author
will we meet today the atomic author and
innovator of episode 85 is none other
than mr james
clear who is one of the leading experts
around the world
on formation of habits he's very very
good at extending those complex
and sometimes difficult to understand
behaviors and goals right down into
really really simple
actionable day-to-day tips and tricks
and you're right mike a wealth of
information we can learn from mr clear
and i can't
wait to get into the show but you you
know james
well you've read a number of his books
you uh
i know that there's a lot of tips that
you've actually said in the past in our
show
that i think are coming from some of
james's work
yeah absolutely i mean more than
anything
um you know i discovered this idea of
habit formation and this idea of
incremental gains every single day
so in my in my to-do list
um every single day i have a ton
of daily recurring uh rituals and habits
that i've picked up over the years that
i try to kind of collect and curate
together to
try and be just a little bit better
every single day and
i'll tell you why i think james clear
and his book atomic happens
is so important and so relevant
particularly
today as we find ourselves in a sort of
you know
quarantined work from home kind of new
normal
i think what james clears
thinking will do for us in this show is
demonstrate
that we don't have to feel this
incredible burden
when we have an ambitious goal
as uh is the wisdom you break it down
into small parts
and you work on it incrementally
compounding your effort every single day
and i love this idea it has been really
transformative
uh for me uh in trying to tackle
my goals my hopes my aspirations of
myself
and to be as good as i damn well can be
and that's what i think is install for
all of our listeners today
you and i are going to break down a
truly
such an articulate author who's got such
a clear line of thinking
i truly believe he's packaged his work
as good
as simon sinek so throughout the show
today our listeners
are in for a bevy of
tips around mindset uh behavior and
habit creation
we're going to delve into some of the
data behind these insights
and understand the importance and the
role that habit design
can play in our lives
mark so chock-a-block a lot of good
clips today right
well i've gone away you've got me going
i i can't wait to hear
not only from james but i want to hear
more about the little tips and tricks
that you do
uh already you've sparked my imagination
as to what i can put into my life you
know beyond
episode 85 so i'm ready to get started
mike where are we gonna where are we
gonna begin with james clear
well i think it's important that we
should mention that this is part
of our new habit series of which
vim hoff came with a very icy
recommendation of a cold shower
and um if you will if that was the
awakening james clear brings us into
the the sunny bit of the day after the
cold icy start from vimhoff
we are learning all about uh behaviors
and habits
and we've got plenty of other uh good
clips not only for this show
but we will be um rounding out the the
habit design series uh with a couple of
really interesting guys
charles duhigg with the power of habit
and william h
mcraven make your bed so there's a lot
lot more to come
and before we hit our lovely global
audience
with the first clip mark we should tell
them if they want to go and dig up some
of the archive
where would you have them go i'd suggest
creating a new habit a daily reminder
for all of our listeners
to go and check out www.moonshots.io
you'll find all 84 archive
shows available there we've got simon
sinek
we've got cal newport we've got jim
collins we've got brene brown the list
goes on
you've got transcripts for a lot of the
shows all of our show notes
as well as a tease of who we're going to
be covering
in the coming weeks and i'll tell you
what we've got some pretty big shows
lined up i'm pretty excited
we do indeed but let's put our
attentions let's go
deep let's go atomic and let's start
with james clear
really getting to the heart of things
and telling us
why habits are so important
each behavior casts a vote for the type
of person that you want to become
and if you cast enough votes for that
type of identity you start to believe
that about yourself
right like if you you go to church for
20 years you believe that you're
religious you study spanish every
tuesday for
30 minutes you believe that you are
studious so in that way your habits
provide
evidence of your desired identity and i
think that that is
probably the ultimate reason that habits
are so important it's true like
habits can help you earn more money or
be more productive or lose weight
and all that stuff is great but in
addition to the external results that
habits provide
they also shape your sense of self they
like are the at
the engine or the avenue through which
you learn to believe things about
yourself
like sometimes people will say stuff
like fake it till you make it
but fake it till you make it is asking
yourself to believe something
without evidence for it and you can do
that for a little while you could do it
for day or week
but eventually i mean there's a word for
beliefs that don't have evidence behind
the delusion
right and if you're deluding yourself
then eventually you give up on that
but the power of doing a better habit
each day or casting a little vote for
that type of person
is that now you have evidence to root
your belief in yeah so now i've done
six months yeah right like i mean now
you have a lot of evidence that you're a
podcaster or a good interviewer
you know like you do this over and over
again each time you cast a vote for
believing that about yourself
and you don't just you aren't
delusionally believing that you're a
good interviewer it's because you've
shown up and done it hundreds of times
right
um and so i think that's true for any
habit large or small
that they provide evidence of the
desired identity or the the type of
person that you are
um starting the show with a great
revealing clip defining what is a habit
for me i i like james's um reference to
the fake it
till you make it uh adage
you know i think we've all we're all
familiar with that but what james is
calling out here which for me is is
really really nice
is that um empowerment rather than
faking it
which ultimately is fake instead take
ownership
yourself and start to believe in what
you're trying to do
you know it reminds me a little bit of
mark cuban telling us about
passion and how you don't necessarily go
ahead and
be disappointed if you haven't reached
your dream
job instead make what you're doing right
now that passion
and i think i'm starting to see that
little bit of uh
symbiosis i think with with what james
clear is saying here
which is you know give yourself the
evidence that you can make it by
creating that new
positive habit he's
yet to build on that i think what he's
really
connecting is that the behavior supports
the belief
which supports the behavior which so
which supports the belief
and you get this compounding where you
keep
repeating positive behaviors that give
you a more
positive belief in yourself
i mean it's just the classic one when
you know you should go to the gym
you're a bit tired but you go and you
feel good after yes
you've got that post-workout buzz going
but somewhere deep inside us
we somehow prove to ourselves we are the
person we thought we
we are we did put in
the effort and we can enjoy the reward
so i think there's a really powerful
thing there even if you just say you're
starting on a workout routine
you want to get a bit healthy and you
just say i'm going to walk for 10
minutes a day
knowing that you did that supports
the belief that you can and want to be
a healthy person and then you know what
and this is so good what we're going to
discover over the rest of the show
is this becomes quite a continuous
journey and maybe the
following week you say i'm going to work
for 11 minutes or
maybe 12 minutes and do this
1 better every day every week
time after time and the results
can be so transformative and what's so
beautiful about this mark
is it's just breaking down such big
lofty ambitions goals
and just making it a practical thing you
can do
today and i think that is
just a taste of what's to come
uh throughout the show where we've got a
lot of mindset a lot of behavior tips
getting into some of the data some of
some of their research so
if you're out there listening you should
dig into this because
it is um just there
is just so much good stuff here i'm a
big james clear
fan and i'm hoping that we can learn out
loud together
uh no matter where you are around the
world and uh mark we
we keep having new listeners joining us
from
all around the world we have three new
countries that have started tuning into
the show
getting us onto the top 100 chats what
global united nations are we building
here mark
who do we welcome to the show today
this week we're welcoming in with open
arms all of our listeners from
mexico austria and slovakia
thank you so much for listening to us
everybody we really really
uh love seeing your different
uh cities and countries appearing on our
our map
every week every couple of days and it's
only down to
you our listeners at spreading the word
um sharing the episodes but also leaving
us a friendly
rating or review or getting in touch
with us we love to hear
from all of our business and let's be
honest we have to put the challenge out
to our listeners we have some of the
most amazing
listeners around the world with crazy
crazy uh handles and user tags i think
beef bouillon he i mean he's he's
in the clear lead but are there any
other great user
names uh from all the recent feedback
that we've had that
stick in your mind mark for me it was a
a very uh lovely listener from bhutan uh
dragon on wheels
well i know what gets my vote is uh
this intersection between mind and
body so no matter whether you're in
mexico austria slovakia or anywhere
on this wonderful planet let's dive into
the world
of author james clear and his book
atomic habits
let's give a nod to the star of our
previous show vim hof
let's see about one of my absolute
favorite topics which is the
relationship between
mind and body i think there are a few
core habits that are going to serve
everybody and certainly serve me well so
exercise is a huge one i don't do it
daily but i exercise training four times
a week yeah and i feel like if i didn't
exercise
i don't know that i would be an
entrepreneur like i don't know if i
could handle the psychological
rollercoaster
without the physical outlet yeah the
release the
you probably feel that as like an
athlete too you know like for
being an athlete for so many years i
feel like i need to push myself
physically in addition to mentally
if it's just mental it doesn't do it for
me i need to have a physical outlet
so exercise exercises one the other the
ultimate meta habit
is reading because if you build a habit
of reading you can solve pretty much any
other problem
you know you want to learn how to be a
better podcaster you can read about that
you want to learn how to meditate you
can read about that you want to learn
how to make more money you can read
about that
and so what you need is to develop a
habit of reading and then whatever
problem you're facing at the time
you can you have a method for solving
that the
interconnectedness the formula the
equation
of physical plus mental i
it reminds me when i was growing up
[Music]
where instead of forcing yourself to
revise
to read books to write essays and
it's still true in my career and work
life at the moment
forcing myself to write maybe pictures
or consider products
you've got to balance that with a
physical uh exercise
or whether it's well it could be in a
number of different ways but almost that
kind of exhaust
you've got to put everything of your
mind into a product
into a bit of work into a deliverable
but at the same time balance it with
focusing your body
at you know getting rid of that energy
as well
and it feels very very um appropriate
to pair it you know james clear's book
along with rim as you point out
because vim was very focused on body
mind
and james is giving us these good tips
on creating new
habits it feels like a great great
little pair here
hmm i must say that that the thing about
exercise
is it um directly relates to how you
think
like don't you have the feeling mark
that
after you've done some really good
aerobic
exercise don't you just feel feel more
clear-headed well it brings me back to
last week's episode
you said after a good cold shower you
have this
feeling of electricity running through
your body
and for me i get that when i've
exercised as i'm sure a lot of our
listeners do
when you've been for a long run or
you've done some great
hot yoga or some stretching even
you've got all that blood moving around
your body and
i believe that that's what stimulates
your brain
into thinking about problems more
finding good
solutions and i personally
i don't know about you mike but i don't
think i'm at my best
when i haven't exercised in the morning
i need to taste i totally agree yeah do
you get grumpy
when you don't exercise in the morning
like by lunchtime are you just a grumpy
yeah i actually feel pretty sluggish if
anything
ironic i feel more tired in the morning
or during the day when i haven't worked
out per thing
yes i do too so and a minimum for me
it would be about trying to fit in 20
minutes
of stretching and using the roller if i
can't for whatever reason exercise
uh due to time constraints um but for me
the other thing apart from exercise
giving you a clear mind so you can
think better you can read more
i think the other big thing is i feel
that it is a
key component to dealing with
the stress of meeting deadlines
solving complexity working in large
teams across different countries
to me it's also sharper mind
but like i'm just more chill mark yeah
well
anxiety stress those are all forms of
energy aren't they you know if you
haven't you haven't burned
the way that i like to think about it
it's almost like you're simmering down a
pot
of you know sauce
when you're putting it on the stove for
a while it sort of allows to evaporate
off
for me i i think of my body in a in a
similar way uh listeners please bear
with me as i try to explain what i mean
if i if i haven't been on uh
the the burns so to speak if i haven't
been burning energy through exercise
whether it's stretching or running or
whatever um i feel
like i'm still full of that negative
energy of anxiety
stress yeah feelings of being
overwhelmed
and and i totally agree for me exercise
is the way to expel that
to put it into deposit yeah i love this
idea that you
you're talking about like switching bad
energy to to good energy and just
burning it simmering off that that bad
energy
and um the great thing about james clear
is he's got
thoughts on how to actually attack and
go after bad habits and you know the
crazy thing is
um you know he he talks about breaking
bad habits and i'm
i'm so so obsessed with positive habits
that i haven't spent nearly enough time
thinking about bad habits so let's jump
in
to author james clear and finding out
about
bad habits and how we can deal with them
we actually have like three
options for breaking bad habits so the
first
option is to reduce exposure um so
something like
you know if you want to stop spending so
much money on electronics then don't
follow all the latest tech review blogs
you know like
or if you want to lose weight don't
follow a bunch of food bloggers on
um you're constantly being triggered by
that and having to like overcome the
problems
now that doesn't always work but if you
can cut a habit off at the source
then a lot of the time like the craving
won't arise naturally so in atomic
habits in the book i talked a little bit
about this
woman who she smoked while she was in
college and she would always smoke while
riding horses with a friend
and so eventually at some point she quit
smoking
and she also stopped you know like
seeing that friend and graduated from
college and so on
wasn't riding horses and then like 10
years later
she got back on a horse for the first
time and suddenly craved a cigarette
and she was like what is going on here
and it's your habits are often tied to a
context they're tied to a situation or
some kind of cue
and so if you can reduce exposure to
that cue then in many cases the craving
won't arise
so that's the first option for breaking
bad habit the second option
which kind of sucks but is like to sit
with the craving long enough to like let
this wave a desire
ride itself out and so you basically
just resist temptation
it's possible it's easier if um if your
hand is forced if you
use what i call a commitment device so
a brief story real quick victor hugo um
famous author who are like hunchback
notre dame and a bunch of other things
well when he got the book deal for
hunchback of notre dame he just
procrastinated for like a year he hosts
a bunch of house parties has friends
over he went traveling for a little
while
yeah he got the book deal he did nothing
no work
um and eventually his publisher got
pissed off they were like
you know can you please like actually
work on this and so they set this
ultimatum for him
and they said uh we're gonna we're gonna
cancel the book in six months if you
don't have it done by then
and so he um he got his assistant to
come in put all his clothes into a chest
and they locked him up and took him out
of the house and the only thing he was
left with was like this the shawl this
like large robe
so basically he had no clothes that were
suitable for hosting guests
or for leaving the house or like going
on trips or anything else so more or
less put himself on house arrest
and what ended up happening was each
time procrastination arose
he was able to kind of sit with that
feeling and let it ride because he
didn't really have many other options
and then get back to work on the book
and it ended up working he got the book
done like two weeks early but
things like that where you can lock in
your future action and it becomes really
hard to
go to your friend's party or go out to
you know travel to a different place or
whatever
just because you don't have the option
if you can increase the friction then
sometimes you can sit with the
craving of a bad habit and let it ride
out i
i you're right going back to your point
before that
last clip mike it's it's quite
confronting
when we think about our bad habits
because they can be anything from
having your friends around too regularly
or
you know not focusing on the problem for
enough time and being distracted
i mean i i like what what james clears
telling us here in terms of
addressing them um but it's it's sort of
a challenge to actually figure out
what they are yes so so my first
reaction to that clip is i certainly see
myself
doing things like i will block out a
morning
um together with you or an evening
with one of the team in europe if we if
we've got
a deliverable coming up and i feel like
we really need to get
set into something like i'll just cancel
everything and just go
deep and this idea of protecting myself
from interruption
locking myself away in the study to
produce
work when required is definitely a habit
uh that i've created in order to
avoid getting distracted or whatever but
let's try and go a little bit deeper
let's think about
how we work um
and i've i've not really done the
exercise of thinking about
something that i do at work which is
a bad habit something that is um
calling uh calling myself out and i mean
i was blown away when james clear was
telling that story of the woman
getting back on the horse wasn't that
crazy ten years later she hasn't had a
cigarette and she gets on a horse
cravings instantly the cute is that
crazy
you the context i mean to help um
to help you um yeah i'll turn the mic on
myself for a second
for me when i'm at work and i think this
actually bridges a little bit to that
first example with with the lady on the
horse
when i'm in a stressful situation at
work
my bad habit would be to
point mental fingers and i'll think uh
i i feel under pressure i feel stress
whose fault is it and i
i think the the behavior that i have is
thinking okay well it must be
so and so or it must be a person over
there
or maybe it's a partner or a client
whatever it might be
that that i think is my bad habit and
that's my initial
uh gut reaction yeah i've got that one
yeah
i suffer i suffer from from that one and
maybe um being too quick
to to judge which has been something
i've always
uh struggled with so let's work out this
this
you know blaming others judging others
like how would we
what would we do if we were to follow
james clear's recommendation because he
he had some pretty clear points there
yeah i like the the context one so when
we are
experiencing a cue or a context similar
to getting back on the horse
and for for my example it would be in a
stressful situation maybe
a deadline is looming or the
deliverables aren't quite right
instead of me pointing a mental finger
i think the proactive way of turning
that negative energy into a slightly
better habit
would be okay well that's fine this is
where we are
how can i improve it what can i do now
to raise it up a little bit and
not in in that example uh start partying
with my friends
and not writing the hunchback of not to
dharm or starting to smoke
instead what's the proactive thing that
i can do
so recognizing that context is probably
the first step
yeah and i think one of the things i try
to do
with you know judgment and
is i really try to say say okay what can
i
do to change the situation
and something i've mentioned before is i
always try and go okay like if i was
their manager or their coach
what advice would i give to the person
in order to help them
um as well and i i think
learning these sorts of ways to break
bad habits
i think another one would be just before
you say and do anything
um you know one of the famous
roman emperors was given the advice
of before making a decision say the
alphabet
just to force him not to just just to
you know
immediately jump off into a decision but
forcing them to
pause and think it's interesting because
i find this quite disruptive
and it it's a real note to self to spend
more time
really asking myself what are my bad
habits and you know
how how do i
start to identify them and and how do i
address them i think
the boldest and scariest thing would be
to ask others much like yourself to say
hey
what are the bad habits come on hit me
hit me with them um
i think that's got to be that's got to
be a good start don't you
yeah absolutely and listeners out there
maybe
if you're feeling inspired by james and
empowered by
uh what atomic habits has got us
learning
feel free to send us a a very
honest email to hello at moonshots.io we
won't call you out don't worry
but if you'd like to put it into action
and write something down
feel free to get in touch because we'd
love to hear from you
yeah thank you so let's let's now think
about
the next step in this process we've
awakened
the mind and body we've identified some
bad habits but
now it's kind of starting to move into
how can we
master this and what's really
interesting about james clear is he
points out
that experience has a really big
role to play in how we build our
expertise so
let's have a listen now to author
james clear talking about experience
the way you develop expertise is by
writing about it every week
so i wrote a new article about habits
every monday and thursday for three
years
and that was how i developed the
expertise on the topic by writing about
it i did the research
you said here's what i found here's what
i tried here's what worked what didn't
work
it's a combination of me reading the
scientific literature and reading the
research and then trying to distill the
practical insights from that
and testing things out in my own life as
a weightlifter a travel photographer a
writer an entrepreneur
and seeing what that looks like and then
the two together i think you need both
like i don't want to be
some new age version of an academic
who's in an ivory tower just like
theorizing about ideas
it's different what it looks like to put
ideas into practice right like imagine
you're
a peak performance coach and you show up
to coach like an mba team
these guys are like dude you need to
step on the court if you know it you're
right to see what it's actually like
hmm intention and hard work that's it
it's funny that the the clip ends
similar to what you were saying mike
about thinking as a manager as a
team leader or a coach you know that
that's funny that the clip ends like
that actually so we'll come back to that
but for me
that clip's all around if you've got a
clear
intention and you're not afraid to work
hard
that's when you can achieve expertise
it's that experience
putting in the yards so to speak that
gets you into that level
yeah and to break it down even further
he's basically
doing a test and learn prototype
sort of mental model here which is you
know read the theory
but then you have to go and apply it and
i think that
you know habits are all uniquely
personal
for example i i've seen a lot of these
habit-forming apps and you know if we're
building a product that
kind of calls on some of this i'll go
and play with them
but for me all i need is uh todoist
which is simply a task manager
your to-do list and i just have
recurring
daily to-do items in there and that's
all i need for habit forming others
respond well to writing things down
some people have positive affirmations
some people have these
um you know fancy uh apps
whatever works is is my philosophy but i
think
his challenge to us is go read all the
simon cynics and james clears in the
world but have a deliberate effort to
test the ideas in your real life so i
love that he was
writing on mondays and thursdays but he
would read the theory and then test it
for a couple of days and come back and
write more around that theory and sort
of
i think that is a very powerful lesson
if you're going to build a habit
read get some inspiration but then run
all your little mini tests
pilot projects and you know tweak away
and
find tuna make it iterative i think
that's the call to action don't you
yeah totally i mean for me i've
taken inspiration from the way that we
use
todoist in our work lives and i've done
a similar thing to you i've set up a
daily reminder to myself
to exercise to write
and actually as an observation i'm
probably taking off a lot more of the
exercise piece but
less so of the writing piece so when i
say writing i mean
journal and actually for me what i've
realized is maybe
this isn't the best way to do it i've
tested it for a couple of weeks
and i haven't stuck to it so now what
i'm going to be looking for
is maybe there is a different way to
inspire or drive my focus
around writing now what's very powerful
about
these daily experiences these day you
know getting into this ritual and habit
design
of doing it every day is that if you do
have this list written down i'm just
gonna do these five things every single
day
i'm gonna stretch i'm gonna do yoga i'm
gonna read for half an hour whatever it
is
what's really interesting is when you've
had a really busy day
and you just returned to the list what's
very powerful for me
is i'll often go to this list and i've
been using this practice for years
i go back to this and go oh i didn't do
this or i forgot to do this or
the beauty is that i can always return
to the list
to remind me of the daily experiences
that i want to have
the daily rituals that i want to build
so it's this ultimate
backup because you can just return to
the list and i think
if you really want to be in this for the
long term
you've got to practice it daily and have
the right tools that remind you
that prompt you that trigger you to make
your habit
daily this this is really key because
what happens is you become so addicted
to it much like the exercise in the
morning thing the cold shower in the
morning thing
or whatever your ritual is when you
don't do it
you really miss it and then you realize
how much it positively informs
your state of mind and if we want to
talk about state of mind
the one thing mark is james clear makes
the point that this
is a long-term game that we're playing
right
oh absolutely and we'll come on to a
great clip um
later on that definitely reinforces that
but
what we'll uh what we'll listen into now
is james clear telling us a little bit
about
how we can um challenge ourselves right
now
so similar to what you were just saying
how do we uh
change our behaviors day to day and
how do we inspire ourselves to new
behaviors so this is
uh james clear telling us about how to
change the game
and stay stimulated so occasionally
and this is true for everybody if you
live long enough life will come for you
at some point right like something's
going to happen
so occasionally life will stress you but
when life doesn't challenge you
i think it's important to challenge
yourself because otherwise you're just
living in this
optimal environment air conditioning and
you know everything else is super easy
you can get all the information in the
world at your fingertips you never have
to like
if you think about how crazy just eating
is in the modern world
so previously when we lived in tribes
you you had to expend energy to get
calories at a minimum you were foraging
for berries but otherwise you probably
had to like
run something down and kill it or part
of a group hunt or all kinds of other
things
now you can get calories without
expending any
all you have to do is just tap like uber
eats on your phone or something it'll
show up at your door
and you can just sit on the couch which
is of course like a recipe for
uh poor health but also just it's the
game has completely changed now
we've transcended a lot of our
evolutionary programming and natural
um situations and so you need to be
careful about designing
that to serve you rather than to work
against you because it can very easily
nudge you in the other direction
that is so good now
this is really interesting because this
directly relates to vim
hoff but this is sort of a new
emergent idea that we're seeing in the
habit design
series and i really like this idea i
want to explore
more which is james clear is basically
telling us
it's actually really worth having a
healthy
tension in your life it's
um very good to be challenging yourself
having some stretch goals making
yourself a bit uncomfortable
i loved this analogy of like you can
literally without
expand expending a single calorie you
can order a ton of calories
now if you compare that to the effort
that cavemen went to in order just to
get a few berries
or to hunt down some meat the point here
for me
is what i have this growing awareness of
and i really relate to it
is sourcing
actually incorporating healthy stretch
goals
that challenge you that make you a bit
uncomfortable
so you're learning and i think joe rogan
said it really well
embrace the discomfort and
uh as as james clear painted that
picture of the zero calorie acquisition
of calories
i mean it's so true but i'm wondering
mark what what has this got you thinking
on how you might keep challenging
yourself get out of the
as james clear would say get out of the
air conditioning for a moment
burn some calories to get some how do
you process
this into something you might do to keep
challenging yourself matt
yeah it's true challenges come in a lot
of ways i guess
and i think you know similar to the
to the list that i mentioned a minute
ago exercise and writing
i think the writing piece seems for me
at least a little bit uncomfortable
because
i don't really know what i'm doing i
wouldn't know where to start
maybe it's a little bit too personal or
revealing but actually
to use to coin your phrase the stretch
goals
that's exactly what it is it's learning
something new whether it's something i
do
personally or something i do during my
day-to-day work
you know all of these i love the idea of
creating
daily goals that make me feel
uncomfortable
exercise i loved exercising so i'm happy
to take that off
most days but actually having her
repeating
moments of my day that challenge me
that that feels pretty exciting actually
uncomfortable
[Laughter]
you know have a take an uncomfortable
conversation off the list
or um spend 30 minutes learning
something
really really hard that you've been
putting off yeah hold yourself
accountable
to actually ask
i think there's really something in
simple mantras like listen to a new song
every day you know read
one news analysis
or opinion piece a day um and
the just small things you could do every
single day
just to stimulate the uh the neurons
to uh to get all the atoms moving around
as james clear
would want i think this idea of
challenging keeping yourself really
challenged with stretch goals i mean
obviously one of the things a lot of our
listeners might see this in
is it's the classic thing is when the
grandparents or the parents
retire and they're not introducing any
challenge into their life anymore their
world becomes a bit small and
on the opposite side when you meet a
retiree
who's out there exercising contributing
to society
socializing the the start
difference you see in people like that
maybe that's one use case
i think the other thing is when you see
people who've been in roles
for years maybe decades
and who are so comfortable
that they are almost bored right
um so i think it's all about trying to
find
some balance between the healthy stretch
goals
you know and giving you time is so to
yourself to rejuvenate
um if there was one thing you could
start doing
each day tomorrow that would be
something new
introduce a little bit of stretch for
yourself mark what do you think that
would be for you if you were to get
inspired by james clear
yeah it's it's a good one it's a good
one i think
it's got to be current affairs perhaps
so staying a little bit more on top of
maybe it's politics maybe it's business
ideas
something that's a little bit um listen
i'm quite
okay with reading articles that interest
me as i'm sure everybody is
but maybe a very very simple addition to
my day
that would take maybe less than five
minutes is to
read a couple of articles from a website
that i wouldn't normally go to maybe
it's
more actual maybe it's more political
that seems to me
very very easy to achieve and quite nice
to slip into the
routine it's funny you say that because
i would like to read more
business news and analysis
um and my problem is is that i have a
ritual of
adding articles to my insta paper to
read later
and then my res insta paper reading list
is like worse than my netflix watch list
it's just shock a block of
things that that's so i'm going to try
that too so
um while we're busy trying to read up on
the affairs of the world
mark where should all of our
wonderful listeners where should they go
if they want to tune in to our back
catalog
uh connect to our social get our
newsletter where on earth should they go
you want to hear mike and i talk about
some tips and tricks
and cover a lot of very interesting
innovators and what they've got to teach
us
head on over to www.moonshots.io for all
of our archive
shows at this point you'll find 84
jam-packed episodes and
a whole all of them have transcriptions
show notes
all sorts of mantras there's a heap of
content online that you'll find
at moonshots.io
sounds sounds wonderful so just to set
the stage we've had uh
like powerhouse um five clips in a row
they're all about
behavior and mindset change we've had
this awakening between
mind and body we've tackled some of
those nasty habits i mean that story of
that woman getting back on a horse 10
years later and craving a cigarette was
ridiculous and
what we've also discovered is you know
we've got to practice we can't just
read the theory we've got to practice it
and if we do that we'll be
on the way up and as we're ascending we
should
never stop always keep challenging
yourself
introducing new behaviors new habits
now we're going to segue into a world
of study research and some data and some
great
analysis that james clear has done
around habit design
and what's interesting about james clear
is he's very similar to jim collins who
we recently did on the show
in going to the data going to the
research and
this seems to be a big theme to the best
authors
that we cover doesn't matter it really
does jim collins as well as adam grant
you know taking a look at a lot of renee
brown
brown exactly i think i'm getting the
impression that we love
data don't we we love it when our
innovators
don't just have a point of view but they
back it up with loads and loads of data
so the next section of the show we're
going to listen to a couple of
experiments and studies
that james clear has as unveiled and
looked into to draw some of his insights
and and comparisons
so in the first one we're going to check
out it's all about
keeping control by planning ahead so
we're going to hear james tell a little
bit of a story
about how to make sure you set the
intention
in order to make that change one of my
favorite studies is about exercise
and they had three cohorts in this study
so they have first cohort they said i
just want you to track how often you
work out over the next few weeks right
so that's the
the um standard cohort the control group
second group is that we want to track
off and you exercise we're also going to
give you a motivation
motivational speech presentation talk
about the benefits of heart health why
habits are good for you and so on so
this is the motivated group
right the third group they got the same
presentation so they were equally
motivated
and then they did one thing differently
and that one thing was they filled out
this sentence
is that during the next week i will
partake in at least 20 minutes of
vigorous exercise on this day in this
time at this time in this place
right they specifically stated their
intention
to implement the behavior so
implementation intention
here's what happened first group one out
of three of them worked out second group
motivation did nothing as soon as they
left the researchers facility the next
day they weren't motivated it's like
reading a book or watching
youtube or listening to a motivational
speaker and then you forget all about it
20 minutes later
but the third group the group that has
specific plan for how they were going to
implement
the behavior nine out of ten of them
worked out so you can increase your odds
of success two to three x
just by having a specific plan and this
is the insight many people
think that they lack motivation when
what they really lack is clarity
they think that they need to get more
motivated that they need willpower in
order to execute on a habit if i just
felt like writing if i just felt like
meditating i felt like working out then
i would do it
but in fact they don't have a plan for
it so they wake up each day
thinking i wonder if i'll feel motivated
to write today i wonder if i'll feel
motivated to work out today
but instead you can take the decision
making out of it by explicitly stating
when
where and how you want to implement the
habit it sounds easy to say let's just
start a plan let's you know write down
exactly what you should do and then
maybe you'll follow through on it but of
course we all know that there are
challenges that arise it's not quite
that easy
so here's a little strategy that i like
to use to make sure you can come up with
a better plan of action
and it's called a failure pre-mortem so
the way that it works is you think about
the habit the project the goal whatever
the most important thing is that you
want to work on
and i want you to imagine fast forward
six months from now you failed
and then tell the story of why you
failed what happened what challenges did
you encounter what was it that took you
off
course um when i do this with businesses
sometimes we call it the kill the
company exercise because everybody just
sits around thinks about ways to kill
the company in the next six months
and once you have all that stuff laid
out on the table in front of you
you can start to make better choices
about how to develop a plan you can
start to have if-then plans so not only
do i want to exercise for 20 minutes on
monday at 5 p.m
but also if i do not exercise because i
have to take my kid to practice or
whatever
then tuesday morning at 7am i will go in
right you can have ways to
adjust for these challenges wow
mark i believe this
is i don't know if we are going to have
a formal award for
clip of the show but this one oh man
this is this one's the real deal let me
let me riff on this one for a bit
i completely see myself
in this story that james cleo told
simple example i was running two
two days ago and i realized
after 30 minutes of running that i
hadn't decided
before how long i would run for
and then i was like oh well will i do 45
minutes or an hour i'm not sure
um and what's really interesting is
how this kind of put me in a flux
because
it's a simple decision but it was about
the intention
and it was really interesting just to be
jogging on going oh
having a little running crisis here is
it 45
or an hour but i'll tell you where i
really really see this is
the night before
i need to do something to deliver
something
i always do it best i always
perform at my best and get the job done
when i make a clear intention the night
before
if i do anything before lunch time
tomorrow i will
deliver xyz and here's the interesting
thing
i notice little side effects because
if i really manifest this intention
maybe writing it down
planning my agenda whatever it takes i
will wake naturally at an early time
because somehow deep in my subconscious
i have laid this intention and so
what i notice is when i don't do that is
maybe i sleep a little
longer or maybe i'll allow other things
to get in
before i do this main thing like i
procrastinate
so it's so powerful as a practice
to say to yourself what's the one thing
i'm going to do
tomorrow and if you focus on that before
wrapping up for the night chilling out
and then hitting bed
if you really manifest that intention
you'll be amazed at what happens in the
morning
you're like a freight train that is
getting the job
done and i can tell you mark i don't
always remember to do this i don't
always get it right
and i see the difference
it's all about the intention how did you
process this
big one two from from james clear
it's it's pretty confronting it's pretty
confronting
but actually i totally agree with it and
i totally agree
with your setting an intention the night
before we've spoken about it on the show
in previous episodes and it's so
perfect that it's been brought up in
this show about james clear
because my uh very simple example i'll
paint a simple
picture if i haven't set that intention
the night
before whether the intention let's say
exercise
whether it's yoga or some kind of hit
workout or a run
i'll get up and my my head
is is kind of foggy i i just stand
around for a bit
i'll look around i'll think well do i
want to put on my trainers what's the
weather like let me check the rain
forecast
and what ends up happening is that
procrastination
will dig into the time that i could have
turned
uh myself around gone for a nice run
probably at the time of my life out in
the sydney
dawn air but instead
i'll stand around maybe wear my slippers
thinking hmm
what do i do and it's true and the
reason is
i haven't laid out my kit the night
before or i haven't decided before i go
to bed
so that as soon as i wake up i know what
i'm doing and i am
100 a believer in this intention
setting style or this method that both
you as well as james clear are saying
here
and for me i i also like this
if then then what so if i wake up and
it is raining okay what's the backup
plan no drama yes
it's this ability to to change and flow
with the punches
that i really like from that clip that's
i like how he how he challenges and say
do the kill the company exercise like
what would if you need to get your
intentions right
ask yourself what will happen if i don't
do them right
if i don't commit to these habits um
if i don't set the intentions well what
happens sometimes
you know that that uh negative uh
case motivation can work hard it's you
know look at michael jordan
he often got his intention his
motivation was derived from
the competition with others he needed an
external factor so sometimes that can be
rather than the upside you can look at
the downside the fear of
losing if you will can sometimes
motivate us
but what's really fascinating is in this
next clip james clear builds on this
idea
and he puts forward a really interesting
story that relates to how goals and
systems
relate to each other and how we can use
them so once again let's have a listen
to
the author of atomic habits mr james
clear most people are familiar with the
story of the good samaritan stopping
along the side of the road to help
help a fallen person help someone in
need well princeton their theology
school decided to run this
experiment they brought in a bunch of
theology students they said all right
we're all familiar with the story of the
good samaritan
we're going to break you up into groups
and you're going to go teach in
different rooms across campus you're
going to teach this story and so they
started talking about you know how they
were going to deliver the presentation
and so on
they had a couple different cohorts the
one cohort they said all right just go
ahead and you know go off and uh
and deliver the presentation so they
went off to their rooms um
the second one though they did something
interesting they sent the group off
but on their way to the well they sent
the group off and they said
by the way we're running a little bit
behind right you don't have very long to
get there it takes about 10 minutes you
only got five so we kind of need to
hurry um you're probably already going
to be late
so they're in a rush they know they're
going to go give this presentation
on the way they planted an actor on the
uh
on the campus and this actor is laying
on the ground
hurt moaning in pain and so they scream
twice
and then they cry out and every single
group
went right past the person in need to go
give a presentation about helping a
person in need
right one person even stepped over the
guy who was in pain
in order to get there now the point of
this
and what i'd like to start talking about
now is the danger of being goal focused
and goal-oriented
these people had a goal right to deliver
a presentation
and they were so one-sided so
narrow-minded so focused on that goal
that they missed the bigger picture and
the perspective of what they should have
been doing in the first place
and i think that this can be a danger of
goals often
and so instead i would like to encourage
us to focus on systems
systems rather than goals here are some
examples if you're a coach your goal is
to win a championship but your system is
what your team does at practice each day
if you're a writer your goal might be to
write a book maybe even write a
best-selling book but your system is how
you write each week the schedule that
you follow
if you're an entrepreneur your goal
could be to build a million dollar
business or a 10 million dollar business
but the system is the sales and
marketing process that you have
the systems are what actually make the
difference they're what drive the
results and
what i've seen having goals is great
having a vision having a dream is nice
it's
important to know where you're going and
where you're headed it's important to
have some clarity of focus
to know that we're moving in this
direction but once you know that
having to go on paper makes very little
difference and committing to the system
and showing up every day drives a lot of
results
so the goal is the destination but what
really really matters
is how you're gonna get there it's so
good
it's a good contender for the second
most valuable clip of the show i reckon
yeah yeah for me
it's such a good um build
this idea of missing the bigger picture
we're so con
uh confronted we're so focused on
losing weight getting a six-pack being
the fastest person we know
delivering an amazing uh uh
career-defining pitch
whatever it might be actually the bigger
picture is okay well
what what techniques what methods what
processes do i go through
to get there and for for me and i think
this is and you all agree mike
exactly what james is telling us once
you've built those
processes those systems that's
what will make the biggest value over
time those will
create the change that you're probably
chasing
by setting a goal
i think the um the difference
i think the i think the difference uh
that he's pointing out is we we can all
have big ideas
um big goals lofty goals um
but the um the real thing here
is he's saying the difference is made
in the systems much like we learned from
michael jordan you can
want to be the best but he was first
training last to leave and
uh it's like the einstein uh
thing that um you know one percent
inspiration 99 perspiration
is the formula for success i think these
are
all related ideas
that if you have goals turn your
attention
and i'm thinking at an atomic level
james clear wants us to create daily
rituals habits
or systems that help us get to those
goals
and i think um if we've got all of this
ambition and desire to do great things
frame that goal but then devote yourself
plow yourself into the systems the
rituals and the habits
i think this is perhaps
the biggest uh idea
alongside of this it's not motivation
that we're missing but it's this lack of
clarity that we heard him talking about
in the previous clip
put these two together if you get this
clarity
on the system you'll achieve the goals
and you'll have
no problem with motivation what do you
think
that's exactly motivation is a dangerous
word
especially when you're waking up and you
don't feel
you're relying on motivation that's not
the way to achieve
those those goals those ultimate
destinations you're trying to get to
instead focus on that bigger picture
that's such a great
takeaway and it really reinforces the
todoist approach
it's setting the intention approach
those are your motivations
and that's what i'll be taking away from
this episode
and installing those little systems
in order to achieve that big big goal of
why am i doing it
i i think that's great well talking
about
motivation in this final
clip from james clear i think he's
giving us
not only a system but he's giving us the
motivation too
so let's for one last time hear from the
author james clear
and let's find
what he has to say about how long
does it take to build a new habit
let's bust the myth of how many days it
takes to set a habit
because there's 14 days 28 days 60 days
a year right if you do something every
single day and maybe it changes for each
person but what's the science or the uh
the statistics say about
how long it takes to form a positive or
negative habit i guess
so 21 days is the thing you hear all the
time 30 days 100 days
whatever right now 66 days is making the
rounds is the latest
in another book what was that book well
there was one study done that found that
66 days was the average
uh for how long it takes and as a rule
of thumb i don't think it's terrible
like you should remind yourself yeah
this is going to be months of work it's
not just going to be something quick
but even within that study the range was
quite wide so if you did something
simple like drink a glass of water at
lunch each day
it would take like three weeks if you
did something more difficult like go for
a run
after work every day that would be like
seven or eight months
but i think actually that question to
begin with
is sort of a there's like a broken
mentality
yeah it is because if you ask that
question the implicit assumption is
when do i have to stop working or when
is this done um
and is it automatic after a certain
period of time well the honest answer to
how long it takes to build a new habit
is forever
because if you stop then it's no longer
a habit it's a constant
choice and a decision right i think
people often look at habits as like a
finish line to be crossed
but it's actually a lifestyle to be
lived and if you look at it as a
lifestyle change
then you're saying you know okay what's
something small and sustainable i can
stick to right what's something that can
actually last
over time um the lifetime
commitment it's it's so true
when you think right a habit i'm gonna
quit smoking
that moment of quitting that could come
after a week that could come after
a day perhaps but it's that's not
to be the end of it is it it's a
lifetime habit
to promise to yourself and commit to
something
where you're either going to repeat it
or not repeat it and
i think james clear he's he's living
into his own name here
he's being crystal clear about habits
they aren't something that you can just
adopt and then throw away you have to
live to it day in day out
and i think that's that's empowering to
me what do you think mike
yeah i i like this this
very frank answer and he's like well it
sort of takes forever
to be very frank i like this because
to me it speaks to this uh
broader theme of
making change really at an atomic level
inside of yourself
and like perfection you never really
finish the job you just keep working on
it and
that's why it's so important to be
working on things that matter to you
they're at a part of your dreams and
your vision for yourself
you're doing you're following your
effort
you're going through the ups and downs
because you truly
want to achieve the things you've set
out to do
you're not a passenger in life you're in
the driving seat
i think this really connects to
just realizing the very best version of
yourself
and having this belief in the infinite
potential that lies within us
and that we can just keep working and
keep improving
all the time
what a big set of clips mark
i mean have we covered some ground or
what
yeah we really have it's been it's been
illuminating
james clear's work is is really really
relatable
it's quite practical but at the same
time he breaks things down in really
really
um you know quite quite simple to
understand ways so i've really enjoyed
getting into him he's reinforced a lot
of the
topics that we've spoken about before
around intentions
encouragement personal ownership i think
comes in a lot through all of this
um what's what's the biggest what's the
biggest lesson that you've taken from
this episode do you think mike
yeah i mean to me james clear has just
been
like one huge wake-up call you know
if it was a bucket of cold water we got
in the last show
we got another serve of it on this one i
could probably do
more work on setting my intentions
continuously reviewing the the systems
and working on them
working in the system working on the
system um
yeah these the last three clips really
spoke to me
um and and it's just exciting
to for the proposition that we can
always grow
i mean he even talked about the idea
listen if you exercise and read books
you're basically going to be superwoman
or superman like it doesn't matter
because if you read you can fix anything
in your exercise you'll be in the right
state
to get the job done so a spectrum of
gifts
mark how good was that so so good
i'm gonna be going to bed tonight
setting myself a great intention for
tomorrow morning
who knows what it'll be maybe it'll be
writing uh for a change maybe it'll be
excellent now you got it you got to read
a news article mark come on steve's
going
i'm going to keep you on track man yeah
thank you that's good that's good keep
me accountable i like that
yeah well it's been great mark thank you
for
for helping me decode the world of
atomic habits
the book by james clear
it's been really wonderful to share
these sometimes uncomfortable sometimes
practical sometimes inspiring
it was just a full bevy from james clear
so thank you to you mark
and thank you to you all of our
listeners
thank you for joining us on this journey
of behavior and mindset change
i hope you're all going to go out there
set the intention
and create the systems not just for
today not just for tomorrow
but for well beyond and whether you're
listening in
mexico austria slovakia or some other
cozy part of the world i hope you're
enjoying this journey
into learning from innovators
and as mark and i go on this journey
we're so
excited to share it with you to get your
feedback
so always drop in at moonshots.io tell
us what you're thinking who you'd like
us to cover and make sure you've got
a nifty user handle so whether it's
dragons or bullion
we thank you for spending this time with
us here on
the moonshots podcast that's a wrap
you