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Lessons - You're Not Behind in Life (Scott) · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  In this lessons episode, I want to speak to you about habits. Because habits compounded over a period
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  of time, create the person who you are good or bad. So I want to teach you how to actually change
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  your habits. I want to talk to you about why will power usually fails because you're not just
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  breaking bad habits. You're actually breaking an identity that you've built through a thousand
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  small choices. We're going to talk about Benjamin Franklin and how his habit system has made him one
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  of history's most successful people and how you can copy it and also how to stop relying on
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  motivation and start becoming someone who naturally does the things they actually want to do.
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  So a lot of you feel like you're behind in life. I'm here to tell you you're exactly where your
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  habits have placed you because you wake up immediately. You reach for your phone. You scroll through
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  Instagram while your coffee is getting cold. You check email before you even thought about your
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  own priorities and you're consuming other people's highlights while your own goals are sitting
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  on touch. And by 9 a.m. you've already trained your brain to react instead of create and then you
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  wonder why you feel behind. You're not behind in life. You are exactly where your habits have
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  placed you. Every single morning you're scrolling instead of creating. Every single night you're
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  consuming instead of building something that you're actually proud of. Every single weekend you're
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  escaping instead of trying to improve. And the gap between where you are right now and where you
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  want to be isn't about luck or timing or talent. It's about the 1000 small choices that you make
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  when nobody is watching. And those choices are creating a life that you didn't consciously choose.
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  We have to talk about this. This is an incredibly important topic. I see people drifting through life
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  because there is so much distraction. Distraction from the habits and the activities that you have to
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  be doing. And I think that a lot of people that are listening to this podcast and consume a lot of
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  my content, they are trying to move in the right direction. But they're being sabotaged. Their
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  brains are being hacked. And if you aren't consciously aware that your priorities are actually not your
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  own, your entire life will end up looking like what someone else wants, not what you want.
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  So let's address it. Let's figure out how to deal with it so that the things that we do daily,
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  the habits that we have actually progress our life towards something that's meaningful to us.
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  Because at the end of the day, your habits are your identity in disguise. Your habits aren't just
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  what you do. They're who you become. Every single action that you take is a vote for the type of
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  person you want to be. Every time you scroll on social media, that's a vote for distraction.
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  Every time you skip a workout, that's a vote for being fat and weak. Every single evening that you
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  spend binge watching is a vote for mediocrity. Now, most people think that they can vote differently
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  tomorrow while continuing to vote the same way today. But the math doesn't work because you are the
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  sum of your repeated actions. Nothing more, nothing less. So the entrepreneur who checks their
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  email first thing in the morning, they voted to be reactive, not proactive. The person who
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  scrolls through social media for an hour before bed has voted to fill their mind with other people's
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  priorities instead of processing their own thoughts. It's not theory. It's how identity formation
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  works. Your brain doesn't distinguish between who you are and what you repeatedly do. To your
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  neural pathways, there is no difference, which explains why small compromises feel so harmless
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  in the moment, but they create such devastating long-term consequences. Now, why are these
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  consequences so devastating? This is my argument because I know you're going to say,
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  Scott, listen, if I check Instagram for five minutes, listen, if I start working out next Monday,
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  or I write the article this weekend, they seem like these very harmless delays, right?
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  Wrong. Every small compromise with yourself erodes the trust that you have in your own commitments.
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  Every single broken promise to yourself makes the next one easier to break. There is so much
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  power in keeping commitment and keeping promises to yourself. It compounds in both directions.
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  It compounds when you keep them and it just increases your mental fortitude. It also compounds
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  when you break them and it just decimate your resolve and it makes every single time you slip
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  that much easier. I've seen this happen in, listen, personal life, business life,
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  relationship. One of my best friends, he's a founder, he had a very simple goal. Write 30 minutes
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  every morning before checking the email. He had the time, he had the space, he had the motivation.
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  What happened? Day one, check to the email first, you know, quote-unquote, just to make sure nothing
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  was urgent. How many times have we done that? He wrote for 20 minutes instead of 30. Day two,
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  he responded to a few emails first because there was some stuff that was urgent. He wrote for 15 minutes.
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  Day three, he got pulled into a long email thread, he skipped writing entirely, but he promised
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  to make up for it tomorrow. Day seven, he had completely abandoned the habit and convinced himself
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  that he wasn't a morning person, he wasn't a writing person. I don't know what he convinced
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  himself of, but he's not writing anymore. Now, what has this, what happened here? What happened was
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  each compromise taught him that his commitments to himself were negotiable. And six months later,
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  he was frustrated because his business wasn't growing and his content wasn't getting traction
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  and he felt stuck, but the problem wasn't strategy or market conditions. It was the identity
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  that he had built for himself through a thousand small surrenders. This erosion of self-trust
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  is why most people feel powerless to change their lives. They've trained themselves not to believe
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  their own commitments. And without that foundational trust, every single new goal that you take on,
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  it just starts to feel like self-deception. But what's fascinating is the same mechanism that creates
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  this limitation can create these incredibly extraordinary results when you understand how to
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  reverse it. So we're going to compound, affect, or flywheel in the opposite direction. But first,
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  I want to tell you a story. Benjamin Franklin, you all know him. He figured out something about his
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  daily habits that most people completely miss. At age 20, he was young, he was wise. Franklin
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  created something that he liked to call his moral perfection project. He picked 13 virtues that he
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  wanted to embody and focused on one per week, cycling through them over and over and over again.
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  In each day, he tracked whether he had lived up to that week's virtue, not perfectly. He wasn't
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  crazy, but consistently enough to build what he called moral muscle memory. Now, for over 50 years,
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  so until he was 70 years old, Franklin did this daily practice of conscious character building.
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  And the results weren't just personal. He became one of the most influential people in American
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  history, inventor, diplomat, writer, scientist, founding father, his daily practice of intentional
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  habit formation, literally helped shape a nation. But the key is that Franklin didn't become great
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  and then developed good habits. He developed good habits and they compounded into greatness.
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  Your current results are last year's habits made visible. I'm going to say that one more time.
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  Your current results are last year's habits made visible. The person frustrated by their bank count
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  made a thousand small financial decisions that led to this moment. The entrepreneur that's
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  struggling to build an audience made a thousand small content decisions that created their current
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  reach. Franklin's genius wasn't in choosing perfect habits. It was understanding the consistent
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  small actions compound into extraordinary outcomes over time. Good habits compound into success,
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  bad habits compound into limitation, and most people are just unconsciously compounding
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  in the wrong direction. And that's why the solution isn't to completely overhaul your life.
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  It's understanding the minimum viable consistency that can flip the compound effect in your
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  favor. Now, Franklin's approach worked because you understood three key principles that most people
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  miss. The power of minimum viable consistency, the leverage of keystone behaviors, and the importance
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  of identity alignment. So let's break down each one and start with minimum viable consistency.
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  Now most people fail at building new habits because they think in terms of outcomes rather than
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  systems. They want to get in shape so they plan a two hour gym session. They want to build an
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  audience so they commit to daily blog posts. They want to learn a skill so they block out weekend
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  study marathons. All of these approaches miss the point. Lasting change happens through minimum
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  viable consistency, not maximum initial effort. I want you to apply the 10 minute rule. Start with
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  the smallest possible version of the habit you want to build, and then protect that tiny
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  commitment religiously. If you want to exercise, commit to 10 minutes of movement daily, not an
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  hour in the gym, not a perfect workout routine, 10 minutes of any physical activity. If you want to
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  write, commit to 10 minutes of writing daily, not a blog post, not a perfect article, 10 minutes
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  of putting words on a page. And here's why it works because you're not trying to build the perfect
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  habit. You're trying to rebuild trust with yourself. Franklin's virtue tracking worked because
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  he could actually stick with it. He maintained it for decades, which meant the compound effect
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  had time to work its magic. And once you rebuild that self trust through these tiny consistent
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  wins, expanding the habit becomes natural. But if you can't trust yourself to maintain 10 minutes
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  daily, you definitely can't trust yourself to maintain an hour. And this minimum viable approach,
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  it also reveals some very important truths. Some habits naturally trigger other positive behaviors.
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  And Franklin understood this when he structured his virtues to reinforce each other.
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  This is where the idea of the keystone habit comes in, because not all habits are created equal.
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  Some habits naturally trigger positive behavior. Now Franklin's virtue practice it works so well,
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  partly because it was a keystone habit that improved everything else in his life. So one well-chosen
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  habit, it really can transform multiple areas of your life simultaneously. Now for many people,
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  exercise is their keystone habit. When they work out consistently, they naturally make better food
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  choices. They sleep better. They feel more confident. They think more clearly. Now for entrepreneurs,
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  maybe a morning routine becomes your keystone habit. It means you wake up early more time for work.
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  Review priorities means better decision making throughout the day. If you exercise or meditate,
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  you get improved mental clarity. And if you eat a healthy breakfast, you have sustained energy.
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  Great morning routine. That's a keystone habit. The key is to identifying which single habit
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  would create the most positive ripple effects in your life. So Franklin's daily virtue reflection
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  was a keystone habit because it improved his decision making in every other area. By constantly
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  asking what would a virtuous person do, he naturally made better choices about work, about
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  relationships, about health, about personal development. So you have to ask yourself what's one
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  change that would naturally lead to other improvements. I gave you two examples, but just start
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  there. And once you've identified your keystone habit and built momentum with the minimum viable
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  consistency towards your keystone habit, you're ready for the deeper transformation, which is identity
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  based change. Now what Franklin really understood was that he wasn't trying to do virtuous things.
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  He was trying to become a virtuous person. And the fastest way to change your habits is to change
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  how you see yourself. So when your habits start to align with your identity, they become effortless.
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  When they fight against each other, meaning your identity is one thing and your habits are another,
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  that's when you need his constant willpower. Because the person who sees themselves as someone who
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  exercises doesn't need motivation to work out. Exercise is just what they do. It's like brushing
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  their teeth. The person who sees themselves as someone who creates doesn't struggle to sit down
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  and write creation is how they process the world. So instead of saying I want to exercise more,
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  you have to start saying I am somebody who moves their body daily. Instead of saying I want to
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  eat healthier, you have to start saying I am someone who nourishes their body with quality food.
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  And every action that aligns with your chosen identity makes it stronger. Every action that
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  goes against it makes it weaker. And this is why the system is so powerful. The daily check in
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  the minimum viable. It wasn't just tracking behavior. It was reinforcing identity. So in Ben
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  Franklin's example, he was basically daily reinforcing the identity of someone who actively
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  practices these 13 virtues. His identity turned into I am the type of person who practices
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  temperance. I am the type of person who works hard. But identity doesn't exist in a vacuum.
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  It's always shaped by powerful forces. So you can do as much as you possibly can do to have the
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  identity that is synonymous with your habits and vice versa. But there are two very powerful
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  forces that shape that are external forces that shape your identity and shape your habits,
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  your physical environment and your social environment. And if you do not manage these,
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  it will be very hard for you to adopt the habits that will eventually become your identity.
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  Because if we go through these two powerful forces, physical and social,
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  environment shapes your behavior sometimes even more than your intentions do.
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  If your phone is next to your bed, you're going to check it first thing in the morning.
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  If healthy snacks are visible and there's no junk food in the house, you're going to eat better.
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  If your workout clothes are laid out at night, you're more likely to exercise in the morning.
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  You have to structure your entire day around the habits that you want to actively pursue and
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  eventually turn into your identity. Franklin understood this instinctively. He structured his entire
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  day around his virtue practice from his morning routine to his evening reflection.
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  So you have to make good habits obvious and bad habits invisible. Now James Clear,
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  he's the author of Atomic Habits, probably one of the most prolific thought leaders on habits.
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  He calls this environment design. But I like to think of this a little bit differently.
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  I like to call it choice architecture. So you're designing your physical space to make good decisions
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  automatic and bad decisions difficult. That's all it is. It's very simple, but many people don't
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  do it. So I'll give you a couple examples of what this looks like. If you want to build creative
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  habits, just keep a notebook and pen visible at all times. You can close all the browser tabs.
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  You're not distracted, except for the piece that you're working on or the work that you're
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  actively engaged in. And if you are trying to enter flow state and be creative, put your phone
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  in another room. Do not disturb while you work. If you're trying to build health habits,
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  so prepare your workout clothes the night before. Keep your water bottle filled visible. So you're
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  always hydrated. Put the healthy snacks that I level in your fridge or even better,
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  only have healthy snacks in your fridge. And if you want to build a learning habit,
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  keep books in places where you normally hang out so you don't turn on the TV at night.
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  You can download some educational podcasts for your commute or if you're going to jump on a plane.
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  And then set up a dedicated spot in your condo in your house where you can just learn. Listen to
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  a podcast. Read a book with minimal distraction. The goal with any of these ideas is to reduce
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  the friction for good habits while increasing the friction for bad ones. When good choices become
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  easier than bad choices, will power becomes irrelevant. Your environment does the heavy lifting.
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  It leaves your brain free to focus on what matters most, but your physical environment,
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  like I mentioned, is only half the equation. The people around you shape your habits just as
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  powerfully because humans are social creatures. We unconsciously adopt the habits of the people
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  that we spend time with. You've heard the saying, you're the average of the five people you spend
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  the most time with, it's true. If your friends complain constantly, you're going to become more negative.
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  If your colleagues work late every night, you're going to feel that pressure to do the same. If your
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  family has poor health habits, you're really going to struggle to find and maintain good ones. Your
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  social environment is your destiny. So let me get this straight as well. It's not about cutting off
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  everyone who doesn't perfectly align with your goals. It's about being intentional about
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  influence. I want you to surround yourself with people whose habits you want to adopt. Join
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  communities of people who are already living the way you want to live, online or offline, formal,
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  or informal. The medium doesn't matter. What matters is the consistency of exposure. So if you want
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  to build a business, spend time with entrepreneurs. If you want to get in shape, train with people
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  who prioritize fitness. If you want to be more creative, connect with artists, writers,
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  makers, you become who you spend time with. You got to choose wisely. And even if you can't change
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  your immediate social circle, you can be intentional about whose content you consume, whose books you
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  read, and whose examples you study. Your influences shape your identity. Your identity shapes your habits,
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  your habits shape your life. And none of these ideas work in a vacuum, right? All this preparation,
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  the minimum viable consistency, the keystone habits, the identity work, the environment design,
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  the social architecture. It all builds towards the moment that actually matters. That split second
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  when you have to choose. And that's really what this all comes down to. Because every habit comes
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  down to a moment of choice. The alarm goes off. You get up, you hit snooze. Finish dinner. Do you go
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  for a walk? You turn on Netflix. You sit down at your computer. Do you open up creative work or
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  do you check social media? Now, these moments don't feel significant, but they're everything.
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  In that split second, you're not just choosing what to do next. You're choosing who to become.
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  The person who consistently chooses the harder path in small moments builds the strength to
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  choose it in the big moments. But the person who consistently chooses comfort builds the habit
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  of avoiding challenge. Your character is built in the gap between stimulus and response.
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  Victor Frankl, he understood this when he wrote between stimulus and response,
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  there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response,
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  lies our growth and our freedom. Now, most people live unconsciously, letting stimulus trigger
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  automatic response, wake up, check phone, feel boards, grow social media, feel stressed, watch TV.
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  Franklin's daily virtue practice was really about expanding this gap, creating space between impulse
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  and action, training himself to pause and ask what would a virtuous person do right now.
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  Living consciously means creating space in that gap and making intentional choices. So the next time
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  you reach for your phone, just pause. Ask yourself, is this moving me toward or away from who I want
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  to become? The next time you skip your planned workout, just pause, ask yourself, what kind of person
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  am I voting to be right now? And these small moments of conscious choice compound into a life that
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  you consciously choose, just like I did for Franklin, just like they can do for you. Now,
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  after listening so far, I don't want you to wait until Monday to action some of these ideas,
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  because you don't need a perfect plan. You don't need to overhaul your life. You just need to make
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  one different choice today. Franklin didn't transform himself overnight. He spent decades building
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  the habits that would define his legacy, but it started with a single decision to track one virtue
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  for one week. The person who exercises for 10 minutes today is closer to their fitness goal
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  than the person who plans to start a perfect routine next week. The person who writes one paragraph
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  today is closer to becoming a writer than the person who's going to, quote unquote, really focus on it
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  once life gets less busy. Progress beats perfection, action beats intention. Your past habits create
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  your current reality, but they don't have to create your future reality. Every moment is a chance
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  to start becoming who you want to be and the compound effect works both ways. If bad habits have
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  been working against you, good habits can start working for you immediately. If you miss a day,
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  if you miss a week, if you miss a month, you don't listen to what I'm telling you right now,
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  you might find yourself living someone else's life, but you're always one choice away from living
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  your own. So start making different choices today right now with the next choice that you make
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  because your future self is waiting.