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E78: Atomic Habits - Build Systems, Not Just Goals · The Junto Podcast

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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I'm your host, Edgar Mills. Thank you for joining us.
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Hey, America, welcome back. Welcome to episode, this is 78. I think we got our
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numbering convention caught back up. But sometimes I will record a thing,
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label it as a number, i.e.
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Episode 76, and then I'll have some inspiration that I want to get out earlier than that.
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So instead of changing numbers around from an already recorded episode, I simply number it.
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Anyway, we're on episode 78, calling this one Atomic Habits,
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and you'll see why in a moment.
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So, we're called the Junto Podcast Based loosely, well, the ideals of the Junto
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Club As imagined and practiced by Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries,
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I don't think that the Junto Club of 1727, the original,
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You know, I don't think it was about these dudes coming together to affect some
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massive immediate impact on the world.
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I think it was about regular men linking up for a beer to discuss how to make,
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well, themselves better, their lives better, to share useful knowledge.
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And because, you know, there wasn't computers, there wasn't social media.
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All the information in the world was not readily at your fingertips.
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I think they just wanted to get together and make each other a little better
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and go away being a little smarter than when they came in that evening.
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Yeah, that's it. That's it. And a little side note on that, ironically,
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speaking of all the information being at your fingertips, well,
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now that's the Internet. But before the Internet, that was the library.
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Well, the lending library, as you know it today, was a product of an idea that
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evolved from the Junto Club.
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Yeah, they wanted the information to be available.
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So anyway, why is the episode called Atomic Habits? Well, for those of you out
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there who read, this is sort of a, I don't even want to call it a self-help
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book, but it's entitled Atomic Habits by a fellow named James Clear.
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And I read it and it's, it's awesome.
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It's a good story, but it's more, man, I would almost say like a textbook.
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You guys noticed that the things that I share on this podcast a lot,
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when I talk about the books I read, I always say, oh man, well,
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it reads almost like a textbook.
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Well, because it's designed that you learn from it. It's not just a compelling story.
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It's not a novel about romance and high adventure, it's, hey,
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how can we make ourselves better? Well.
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Atomic Habits fits right into the tradition of the Junto Club about just making each other better.
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And it's not a, again, it's not a novel. It's not a motivational self-help book.
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It's not anything like that.
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It's almost like a manual for how to maximize your daily life,
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how to build good habits, how to make good decisions.
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And a lot of us come up short on that.
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You guys heard my last episode and I was talking about, you know, chaotic life,
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and you got kids and you got things and you got so much stuff going on and you
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can't prioritize or you make poor decisions that exacerbate other poor decisions.
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Well, this book helps clarify that stuff, and it's great, and I'm glad I happened upon it.
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So James Clear, the author, his story, yeah, he's got a story,
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and it sets the tone for the book for sure.
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He was a high school baseball player, and his head got smashed in by a baseball bat.
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Not by any nefarious thing, it was just an accident, but his face and skull was crushed.
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And he spent months, you know, relearning how to do the most fundamental things.
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And because he was already a teen, right? He was in high school at this time.
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He had to build habits to help him learn, relearn things. Well,
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I don't want to say faster, but to try to play catch up.
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And yeah, it wasn't, clearly that was a struggle, right? I mean,
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I can't imagine having my whole skull bashed in.
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But what he points out and what was going on with his recovery was that.
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That he noticed and eventually wrote about was that it was little small actions sort of repeated,
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that helped rebuild his capacity. Small actions, bite-sized chunks,
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eventually those little small actions were repeated and repeated,
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until he got back to where he was supposed to be. And one of my takeaways from this book.
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It's this,
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We tend to overestimate like some single defining moment.
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And we underestimate the incremental little accumulation of small improvements,
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because they're mundane. We don't see them instantly. We don't get the instant
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gratification, which we'll talk about here.
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We tend to look for that one great moment. And sometimes they just don't show up.
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But with the small incremental improvements, man, one day you wake up and you're
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like, man, your life is just, you don't know when it happened,
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but somehow we're living well. We're doing good.
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Managing our time. Managing our money. Everybody's pretty much happy.
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Yeah, small incremental improvements.
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Yeah, we need to start paying a little more attention to that.
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And another thing he pushes here is that we no matter who you are what you do,
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you should strive to be one percent better every day at your thing whatever
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your thing is whatever you want to be better at and it doesn't even have to
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be your thing just your job just interacting with other people anything like that,
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this whole book's about habits so the whole book's about habits,
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building good habits and getting rid of bad habits.
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Small productive habits compound over time and you will improve.
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In the training business, you know, there's some good parallels here,
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and this is one or another reason I latched onto it, to this book and read it
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was in the training business on self-defense specifically or tactical training specifically,
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you will hear this said all the time.
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You don't rise to the occasion.
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You will fall to your level of training.
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I believe that. I've seen it in action.
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And I've seen highly trained dudes even still reach their limit.
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There is, you hear the rare stories about in traumatic events,
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like if a car rolls over on a kid, somebody has superhuman strength.
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That's kind of different. We're talking about performance here.
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You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training. I believe it.
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And what he says in the parallel that I picked up on was he says,
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you don't rise to your level, the level of your goals.
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You fall to the level of your systems.
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You can have, I probably have the same goal as 500 dudes walking around Rome, Georgia.
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I want to be financially stable and have a cool car.
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The goal doesn't get you that having the goal. Anybody can have the goal.
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It's the systems you implement to get to that goal is what makes the difference.
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And it's systems. It's not one act. It's not one thing.
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It's system, which is there's multiple pieces of that, and we're going to go into it.
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So ultimately, what I reckon is, the question is not what do I want to achieve or what is my goal.
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The question is, how do I form habits to achieve those goals?
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You can have any goal. You can change your goals. They may change even.
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How do I form habits to get to where I want to be, wherever that is?
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And this parallels so good with firearms training and tactical training.
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Professional firearm trainers they teach sort of what you might call performance-based
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training versus outcome-based training performance equals systems,
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outcome equals goals,
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if our systems are correct if our systems are principally sound,
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the outcomes will take care of themselves the bullets will go where they're
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supposed to if your systems are correct and consistent.
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That applies to habits. It applies to goals. It applies to all sorts of things.
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So the parallels are very critical here.
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Now, Mr. James Clear was, I think he was still, even after he recovered, went on to be an athlete.
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Professional or college or minor league, whatever athletic training methodology,
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is a very similar training methodology to to firearms training i mean very similar,
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almost no difference the tasks you're doing are different but the way you the
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way you implement them the way you train them are not much different,
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there's repetition there's training in isolation and there's reps then you put
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it all together test it and then You'd go back and train in isolation fundamentals.
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This is a very similar thing. And this applies to our habits,
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the kind of our daily habits. It's a good book. Man, it's such a good book.
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And I'm only going to briefly, I'm doing a little mini book report here.
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I'm skimming the surface. You should read the book.
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The fundamentals, why do tiny changes matter? Because that's,
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those are the ones that accumulate.
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Rarely in my experience, now I'm speaking from my experience.
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Again, everything I say here, folks, is opinion. I'm not a damn journalist.
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If you think, oh, cite your sources, whatever. Here's my source,
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atomic habits, and my experience.
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My experience is, if you're trying to make that one big change, it often does not stick.
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If you didn't build the little incremental things to support it,
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to support the sustainment of it, tiny changes matter.
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So layers to our behavior, it's our behavior and it all comes down to that. Most people.
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Start outward and work in, right they they they try to affect external factors,
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first thinking that's going to change all the other little factors.
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There are things we can't control in this life mostly most all external factors
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we have very little control over and if you try to control those external factors,
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to achieve a goal i want that i want to do that i want to change that it ain't going to stick,
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So there's So here's what the way clear breaks it down I already talked about outcomes and processes,
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So the outcomes are Well the end goal right the end state What you want Whether
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it's a thing or to be a better parent or To lose weight or whatever.
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And then there's the processes, the performance, the systems and the routines,
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that help you get to that outcome.
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But then here's the other thing, and here's what makes it different and unique.
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And then there's identity, right? He's talking about these layers of behavior.
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So there's the outcomes we want, and there's the processes we want to get to them.
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But then there's the identity who we say we are or who we think we want to be,
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versus who we show that we are,
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you can say you love to do xyz but your actions will will either confirm or
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deny that you can say you love your kids but your actions will you,
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you may love them but actively engaged with them.
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And you can apply that to Christianity. I'm not here to be religious about all
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this, but you can say you love Jesus, but your actions, yeah,
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yeah, you love Jesus, but yeah.
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But I still need, I still want to get some of this right here. You see what I mean?
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There's who you say you are, and then there's what you do to prove who you are.
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So we've got to make our identity straight first.
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We've got to decide who we want to be and think on that and then do processes
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and systems and habits that confirm who we are and the outcomes, they will fall in place.
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Yeah. They will fall in place. Yeah.
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The performance, I'm going to say and carry on about the parallels of training
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versus building good habits.
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It's more important to focus on how we get to a thing.
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I think that's a very Eastern Japanese sort of mentality, but there's no philosophy
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here. I mean, this is practical application.
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This isn't some weird, deep philosophy or some intellectual theoretical stuff.
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This guy, the guy who wrote this book, lived it, and he's a success.
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And, you know, he's probably, deep down, there's probably, everybody's got some
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friction in their life. But, generally speaking, I'd say this guy's a success.
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If nothing else, he's a published author, and he's alive after having a skull bastard.
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So, this isn't philosophical fluff, and this is not theoretical.
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So, lasting change, sustainable, long-term change starts with our identity and who we want to be.
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And this does not directly correlate with politics. I'm not talking about politics
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at all because I always poo-poo on identity politics. But that's superficial.
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I'm talking about real identity.
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And that's where it starts. So we have to decide the type of person that we, we want to be.
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Yeah. The type of person that we want to be.
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And hopefully that that's things like being reliable, honest,
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selfless, things like that.
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Family focused, drama free.
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Yeah. That, that would be good. Right. If we could, if the type of person,
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if everybody you would think you think like, oh yeah, everybody wants to be a good person.
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I don't think everybody does. man.
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I don't think everybody does. So you have to decide the person you want to be.
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And then you have to prove it, if to no one else, yourself every day.
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Prove it to yourself every day. A lot of guys out there, I don't know anybody,
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anything. I don't have to prove anything to anybody. I got nothing to prove or whatever.
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You got something to prove to yourself. You certainly do.
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I have struggled with this, this thing. I'm speaking of right now is who you
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want to be versus who you, what you physically do.
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Yeah. Prove it to yourself. And it's not one big giant fail swoop.
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All right, there it is. It's little, little actions, the little actions.
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And I'll give you one of the most, it's kind of, it's on the internet all the time.
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You'll see it, but it's one of the most, it's one of the most succinct examples,
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is when you go to the grocery store,
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and you see somebody just leave their buggy in the middle of the parking lot
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versus walk it 10, 10 yards down the parking lot and put it away with all the rest of the bugs.
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It's little, it's little incremental things. It's a little thing like letting
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a guy get over who's about to run out of the lane, little incremental things.
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If you want to be a good person, if you choose to be an asshole,
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I mean, yeah, that's not hard to, hard to prove to yourself every day. That one's easy.
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It's easier to be an asshole than it is to be kind or reliable.
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Yeah. Every single action either supports who you say you want to be or, or, uh, it doesn't.
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There's not a lot of middle ground. you either do a thing that that person you want to be would do,
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if you want to be a pro athlete i got i got a friend i got a friend kurt who's
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a pro shooter with the tactical games i'm pretty sure everything that dude does in his life,
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supports that because he wants to be an excellent top tier tactical game shooter,
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everything he does supports that,
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He trains all the time Physically Shoots all the time Yeah He's doing the little
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actions That support who he wants to be.
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Now, yeah, that's one subject, one topic, but anything that goes on in your
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life that you do that does not support who you think you want to be,
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well, ultimately that's a wasted effort, isn't it?
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All it did was work against you and you're just, you're working against yourself.
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You say you want to be this thing and then you go and do something that does not support that. Yeah.
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If I say I want to lose 15 pounds in three months and I sit around and stuff
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my face with checkers burgers I'm working against myself,
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if I say I want to lose 15 pounds in three months that's five pounds a month
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right I go I go to the gym and I go run when I have free time I do it on the
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schedule, but if I'm sitting around with nothing to do,
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the person I want to be would get up and go run.
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So I'd get up and go run.
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Do the things that the person you would want to be, you want to be, would do.
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And I'm not saying compare yourself to professional athletes or whatever.
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I'm saying if there was another guy sitting right here right now and he was
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where I want her to be. What would he do?
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Yeah. It can be hypothetical. Your comparison.
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It's a wasted effort if it doesn't support who you want to be.
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If you want to be a loving and dependent parent, right, dependable parent,
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not dependent, codependent maybe with your spouse.
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If you want to be a dependable parent and a loving parent, well,
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just feeding your kids ain't enough, right? You got to take active interest in your kids.
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Ask them how their day was. Ask them, what did they learn today? Who'd you talk to today?
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They might tell you a good joke today. Did you draw a good picture today? All that stuff.
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Every day every day not just when you feel like you're in a good mood if you're
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in a bad mood and you ignore your kids that's not what a loving dependable parent would do yeah.
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And that logic applies across the board, folks. I don't care if it's for work
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and you're a framer or a mechanic or a CEO or you're trying to be a good father or mother or whatever.
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That logic applies across the board.
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Every aspect of life, it applies. Do the habits that the person you want to
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be would do, whatever they are, wherever they are.
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Habit, well, it's synonymous with consistency. And you guys hear me carry on
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about consistency all the time.
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A habit is, is what you do. It's a consistent thing you do.
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And when it's habitual, then it's kind of subconscious and even without,
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without much thought, right?
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When it's a habit to be a good, loving, dependable parent, you don't have to
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think about when your kids walk through the door, you have to think about asking
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them, give them a hug and say, Hey, how's it going? How was your day?
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I loved you. Did you have a good day?
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That's habit. You don't have to think about it. You just do it.
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So the systems are important. The habits are important.
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If we're talking about outcomes or goals, right, and that's the way we focus,
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that we don't focus on the mechanics of getting to a place. I just want to get this.
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There's a cost. There's hidden costs in that.
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That idea kind of creates like a binary where it's you either fail or you succeed,
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and there is no middle ground,
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when you work on improvement improving the system it's not fail or succeed it's
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incremental improvement,
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you might you might be somewhat stagnant but as long as you're not going backwards,
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you're chugging along so and then Then let's say it's a sort of a minor goal,
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or somewhat superficial.
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So you've reached the goal. Then what?
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Now all the things you've been working to do or achieve this no longer have
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any function. So it's like.
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Now you're sitting here depressed maybe, you know. So you've been thinking,
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man, if I go get this other job, because where I'm at now I'm not 100% happy,
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but if I go get this other job, everything's going to be great.
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You don't take any steps to make yourself happy. You don't improve your environment as it is.
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You don't just have consistent good habits and consistent good thoughts it's
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always man if i get this other job it'll be great and you get the other job,
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and then it's not great it's just,
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just as screwed up as the other right then what now you're devastated succeed or fail and that's a fail,
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Building systems and building habits and working incrementally to be better
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every day, 1% better every day,
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that's the game. That keeps you in the game. That's the game.
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If you build your habits and your decision-making to be better and better and
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better, any outcome, whatever, you're winning because you're not focused on this.
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You're not focused on the outcome. You're focused on how do I become the person,
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who can, well, make things happen, who can get things done?
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How do I become the person that can go stand in front of a CEO, pitch an idea.
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And what if that idea don't get implemented? Did you lose? No.
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It might take a couple months to brew.
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It might have to simmer on the back burner for a minute, and then one day, boom.
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So you just you built the good idea you built whatever system you're working
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and you have a good system for things and you deliver something and,
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right you don't just have this oh i was inspired to do this idea here what do
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you think nope that sucks.
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Systems systems keep you in the game systems keep you in the game,
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and oh man so you know you guys remember a few years ago all the i don't want
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to make a name a generation i don't know who but everybody was walking around
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with the saying yolo remember that yolo you only live once,
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well i mean that i think that fad has kind of faded away thank thank god And,
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And it's true you only live once. That's not a wrong statement, I guess. But,
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if we're smart, we also live long.
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That's my goal, right? Life is a long game. We've got to stay in the game.
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The processes keep us in the game.
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That whole idea of YOLO, that supposes that I'm,
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going to live and die on this. So be it.
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What a stupid thing. And I can take it, but that's why I didn't want to say generational.
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I'm a big James Dean fan. He died in 1955 at the age of 24.
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But when he was young, he said something to the effect, and I'm pretty sure
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it was him that said it, live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse. Yeah.
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No process there. That's just, I don't want to live fast and die young.
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The Who has a song, The Who from the 60s, a British band.
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My generation, and this was, I don't even know, 69, maybe 68.
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And one of those lines in there is, I hope I die before I get old.
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Well oh the irony because roger daltrey i think his name is he's still walking
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the earth man dude's probably in his 80s keith richards and nick jagger the whole,
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you know in the 60s it was all don't trust anybody over 30,
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life is a process if we can refine the processes along the way,
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we'll be able to digest life a little easier without so much chaos and trauma.
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Processes keep us in the game.
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Processes keep us in the game.
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And like I said, I talked about Ben Franklin earlier in the Junto Club.
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They understood that he understood that. Ben Franklin understood it.
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And this is in the book as well. But, you know, Ben Franklin had his own little virtue tracker.
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He wrote down like, I don't know, 13 or 14 different things.
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And one of them was like, one of them don't have trifling conversation.
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Meaning if you're saying a thing be productive about what you're talking about,
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and it was another one something to the effect of like don't waste time,
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don't you know things like that and he tracked and he tracked his self,
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and that's good and and we'll get to it i think there's some stuff especially
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in the book now i'm not going over all that stuff in depth but the person you
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want to be the identity you've chosen for yourself.
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Now, I don't, yeah, you go out club and you got your facade when you're young,
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right? When you're a young person, or when you go to work, maybe you have your facade.
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I don't like that stuff personally.
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But the person you really want to be, the person you really want to be,
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the person you want your mom and dad to look at and go, yeah,
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that's right. That's who we raised.
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Or the person that you want your child to look at and think that you are all
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those things that they think you are.
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Write some of those characteristics down and then track what you've done to support that.
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That's a good little thing.
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And franklin did it in 1727 so and then all right so talking about habits and
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building good habits james clear he he sort of explains this habit loop he calls it,
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and this habit loop has has four elements to it and it's a cue or a trigger
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something that evokes an action.
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Then there's a craving aka motivation you there's a cue that causes you to ask
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and there's a reason why there's a motivation why you want to do the the thing,
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and then there's the the response or the actual action you take and then there's,
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the reward or the payoff it feels good or i helped someone,
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usually it's got to do with feeling good, right?
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On whatever level, whether it's a bad decision and you do some,
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some casual sex because it feels good instantly, or whether you help a little
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old lady cut her lawn because she was out there pushing a mower and 98 degrees, it feels good.
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So that's it. You've got your, well, I'm going to use the words I apply to it.
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Trigger, motivation, action, and payoff.
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Clear says cue, craving, response,
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and reward. He's probably more intellectual, right, than I am. I'm...
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I'm uneducated. So, yeah, but the cue or the trigger, that's the opportunity,
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that's the signal for an opportunity or a need or something.
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And then the motivation is the desire to make some change, right? Right now I'm hungry.
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I see food. That was the cue. My motivation is to have a full belly,
31:29
right? I know it's a simple one.
31:32
And then there's the action, the response, which is the small actions that you do to affect change.
31:37
They don't have to be big, epic actions. And then there's a reward that feels good.
31:44
So if you take the person you want to be and the little things we wrote down,
31:50
like the characteristics, and then we do this little habit loop that supports that characteristic.
31:59
It teaches your brain to repeat that cycle because it felt good.
32:04
That's the payoff. He felt a sense of accomplishment or pleasure or some happiness, something.
32:13
It can be as small as a hug from your grandkid.
32:26
Sorry about that. It can be something as small as a hug from your grandkid.
32:30
It can be something as large as you get a lot of money.
32:33
You did a job and you made a lot of money or something.
32:36
So anyway, providing that habit loop supports the person you think you want to be.
32:42
You're going to, it's going to feel good inside. You're going to start to build
32:45
that, those neural pathways. They're going to take the past to feel good,
32:49
to get that feeling back.
32:52
All right. So based on that, that little habit loop, clear comes up with,
32:59
there's lots of lists and there's lots of things here. but.
33:05
And come up with some sort of laws, I guess you might want to call them,
33:08
to building a good habit.
33:12
And number one of those is you got to make it obvious.
33:18
So a lot of things run on autopilot in our life. And that's okay,
33:21
but a lot of things don't.
33:24
That autopilot, depending on how we've trained it, may be good or bad.
33:28
Now, I'm not going to go into detail, but I used to have a very negative sort
33:32
of autopilot. But there was a habitual thing that when I had that certain trigger
33:39
that happened periodically,
33:43
I would go into like a routine and it was not a good one.
33:47
And we can do that. Obviously, it can be good as well. And that's the goal,
33:50
right? That's the goal, to make good habit building.
33:54
So make it obvious.
33:58
And if it's obvious, you recognize the need for it, right?
34:02
When I say make it obvious, I'm talking about the good habits and bad habits.
34:06
Your bad habits should become more and more obvious to you as you're trying
34:10
to develop your good habits. Because they're in contradiction.
34:14
So the one you lean to the most is the one that's most natural.
34:19
Less obvious, probably, is the one you do regularly.
34:26
So make it obvious, whether it's good or bad.
34:30
Your little actions and habits and motivations may start to really recognize
34:35
you can't change what you don't identify that needs changing,
34:41
in the addiction world everybody says the first thing,
34:45
to solve the problems is admitting you have a problem well to admit you have
34:48
a problem you have to recognize you have to well not even admitting that you
34:54
have right you have to accept Like, yes, I see this problem and it's, it's my problem.
35:00
So yeah, you have to be able to recognize the things that need changing.
35:05
Yeah. Yep. That's it. Make it obvious. Number one.
35:12
Now, James Clear is all about the notes and stuff like that.
35:16
He says keep a Habit Builder scorecard.
35:19
I mentioned the Ben Franklin sort of virtue tracker.
35:23
Anyway, man, anything that helps you, right? Anything that helps you.
35:29
And you can write down the things you think you want to do, like physically,
35:34
and then you can put a little checkmark next to them. Did I do this or did I not?
35:39
Or you can write down the things you want to do.
35:42
And if you're really on the job and really meticulous, write down the things
35:44
that you actually did. This is how an after-action review works.
35:49
And then go back and look at all the things and then see, well,
35:52
does this support a good habit or bad habit?
35:55
And write it, good or bad. Or is it a neutral thing?
36:00
There's a lot of things in life that are just a neutral thing, you know.
36:05
Well, maybe, I mean, most things can lean one way or the other based on the
36:09
other supporting habits.
36:12
And like, you know, this isn't judgment theater on yourself,
36:15
right? You don't have to crush your own soul about, oh my God,
36:19
I'm such a shit bag. And then you just dump it all and carry on with your bad habits.
36:24
And you can't do it all in one day, for sure. But what you're doing when you're
36:28
making these notes, it's just raw data.
36:31
That's it. It's just something for you to analyze.
36:34
Just passionately analyze.
36:37
Very similar to shooting. When I have private sessions out here,
36:40
I tell people all the time, hey, yeah, the goal is that we hit A-zones really
36:46
fast, but we're not working for the goal. We're working for the process.
36:50
If we get the mechanics right, the A-zones will be there.
36:54
So until we get there, in the process, the hits on target are just data.
37:02
Don't think it's good or bad. Just look at it, assess what it is,
37:07
and let's figure out how the C zone or D zone happened.
37:12
Log it into memory, figure out what we need to do to change it, and carry on.
37:18
We're improving the mechanics as we go. Hits will take care of themselves.
37:24
This is the same process. Same process, except with your habits and your attitudes and your life.
37:33
So, yeah, and he's talking about this habit building.
37:37
And he's got a very distinct example of you write down a thing if you want to
37:43
do a thing, right? If you want to start doing a new habit, like going to the
37:46
gym at a certain time or whatever, write it down.
37:49
I will go to the gym at, you know, 0800, you know, that's it. Write it down.
37:58
And then you can, he talks about stacking habits.
38:02
So you write that down and you do that for a month or whatever.
38:07
And then you can, I will go to the gym at 0800.
38:12
After the gym, immediately, I will go for a run. And then you start doing it.
38:19
Writing it down as some little small form of accountability, I think. Yeah.
38:26
And to bring it home a little bit, I will walk the kids to the bus stop at 0800.
38:32
0 6 30 or whatever time as soon as i get back to the house i will make breakfast
38:39
for the little one yeah that's it,
38:44
after breakfast and after i've cleaned the dishes i will do yoga for 30 minutes,
38:50
whatever write it down track it at the end of the day go back,
38:57
Did I do it? What did I actually do?
39:01
Didn't weigh him.
39:04
I think he said this in the book. I'm not sure if he actually said it,
39:07
but I wrote it down. Process beats willpower.
39:12
Yeah. Some people have very little willpower when it comes to making changes
39:20
in their lives, especially when it's something they perceive as a big change.
39:25
Willpower. Process beats willpower. I believe that.
39:31
So how do we beat that? Well, we develop our process, yes.
39:36
We also make our environment conducive to what we want to do.
39:41
So we're setting up the conditions that supports our good habit building versus our bad habit building.
39:50
We set the conditions to support our good habit building.
39:54
If you got that one friend that wants to take you out drinking and whore chasing,
39:59
well, he's your friend and he should be your friend.
40:03
You ain't going to cut your friends off, I hope.
40:07
Don't go drinking and whore chasing. Say, hey man, let's meet at Swift and Finch.
40:13
Let's go have a cup of coffee, sit around bullcrap.
40:16
Instead of at the bar where you
40:18
know, good and well, there's bad decision-making going on all the time.
40:24
Simple. It's not simple. It's difficult.
40:28
But you've set your environment up to be conducive to the good habit instead of the bad habit.
40:33
Yeah. You've set your environment up. You're shaping your environment to help
40:38
you. And that's what we need to do.
40:41
If you're a person out there, a dude struggling or a female even struggling
40:45
with like alcoholism there I
40:48
know a lot of people a lot of people some of which have committed suicide,
40:54
not necessarily because of alcoholism I think alcoholism was just a byproduct
41:00
of some other deep stuff but,
41:03
if you if you struggle with alcohol I mean don't have booze in the house that's
41:08
the answer that's the only answer and And don't put yourself,
41:12
don't go to that same place where you normally went to go buy booze.
41:17
Don't go there anymore. Start going to a different store.
41:20
Just changing the location will help you get out of a habit.
41:27
Yeah, just changing the location is an environmental change that will cause
41:33
your brain not to, like, go straight for the booze. Yeah.
41:37
A young mom and you're trying to figure out, oh, fitness, I don't ever have
41:41
time. I don't ever do this. I don't ever do that.
41:43
Well, when you lay the kid down for a nap, don't lay up on the couch texting
41:49
with your girlfriend and drift off to sleep.
41:53
Pull your yoga mat out.
41:56
Put it on the TV there, on the Netflix. Pull up your little exercise routine or whatever.
42:02
Spend 30 minutes. The kid's going to nap for more than 30 minutes, I'm sure.
42:06
Spend 30 minutes doing that instead of just, yeah.
42:11
That's conducive. Have the yoga mat out in the living room or little stretchy
42:16
bands or little dumbbells or whatever.
42:19
Have them visible. Yeah, have them visible.
42:24
That's shaping your environment to help you with good habits. I like that stuff.
42:29
And when you read this book, this guy's, the research was immaculate. Yeah, immaculate.
42:38
It's environment. It's architecture. You're structuring your day,
42:44
to be difficult. We'll get to not do the bad habits. You're structuring your day to do good habits.
42:54
Make things obvious. Your environment can help you make things obvious.
43:00
That's why going to the gym it's hard for me to PT at home I need the environment
43:06
I need that I need to be there so when I go to the gym there doesn't matter
43:12
what I'm listening to I normally listen to a book or a podcast.
43:17
Or or music when I'm in the gym and that's become kind of a routine is so that
43:22
I can get the books read while I'm doing the thing and then I'll go for a run
43:27
after the gym, that's become the habit. I've made that a habit.
43:31
So I've got a good solid hour and a half or two hours of listening to the books,
43:37
heart rates up, doing my things.
43:40
That's a good habit. Now those two hour, they ain't always at the same time of the day.
43:46
My life's a little erratic with, now I'm talking about me personally, right?
43:50
Sometimes I'll have private sessions, starting at 10, sometimes starting at two.
43:55
So I've got to get it in there, but it's no big deal.
44:00
I know that I got to be in the environment to make it obvious.
44:05
That's law number one. That's what we're talking about. So structure your environment,
44:09
to be obvious for the good habits and on the opposite side of that,
44:15
to hide the bad habits, to obfuscate the bad habits and get those out of direct
44:22
line of sight so that the environment is not conducive to you continuing your bad habits.
44:28
And think about your current environment right now. Is it conducive?
44:32
Is it supporting or hindering good habit building?
44:36
Yeah. Make the goodness obvious.
44:40
Number two, make it attractive. So we're modern day Americans,
44:46
right? We love instant gratification.
44:50
We love it. The social medias, man, the YouTubes, the points,
44:55
instant porn text. When you text in with that naughty friend,
45:00
whatever, it feels good immediately.
45:03
And to immature people, those feelings,
45:08
they kind of feel like needs like you feel like you need that they're not needs
45:14
you don't need that that instant gratification is not a need whatsoever it's
45:19
the opposite in fact you're hurting yourself,
45:23
because these superficial you know little feel goodies there do they support
45:28
who you say you want to be if you want to be a reliable wife mother father brother sister,
45:38
and you want to be a, well, what we call a good person based on whatever your value system is.
45:47
You want to build the temple to be indestructible.
45:54
These little superficial feel goodies don't do anything for you.
45:58
They have the dopamine. They get that little rush there that fades away.
46:03
And then when it fades away, you need it more. And it fades faster.
46:07
And then you need to go deeper.
46:10
It's bad. But it's attractive. I like looking at trucks and titties,
46:16
motorcycles and guns. If I pull it up, it feels good. I see a really cool car.
46:21
I'm like, oh man, that's awesome.
46:23
It's a waste of time. It's a waste of time.
46:29
So let's start with social media. Cultivate your feed that you see on your,
46:36
whether it's Instagram or TikTok or whatever, to support the person you say you want to be.
46:42
There's good stuff out there. There's really good stuff out there that is helpful,
46:48
educational, supportive.
46:51
There's a lot of philosophical stuff out there. Now, look, yes,
46:54
you got to check facts sometimes.
46:57
But generally speaking, there's a lot of good stuff out there that's good for you even.
47:04
But it's easy to skip over that to go look at the titties.
47:09
So cultivate your feed to where you're seeing good things, productive things,
47:14
and not the bad things, the things that are harmful, things that are going to
47:17
cuss your wife to divorce you or whatnot.
47:20
And then create, starting with yourself, create your own little culture for
47:25
yourself and then start to expand that culture out to your kids and your family.
47:33
The person you say you want to be is normal and accepted in that culture.
47:39
Right? If you say you want to be a Christian man, or at least follow Jesus and the Gospels, right?
47:48
I ain't saying you can't hang out with your heathen friends.
47:51
I'm saying your feed and your daily, all your inputs every day should support
47:57
what you say you want to be. Yeah.
48:01
And when the person you say you want to be becomes the norm, how easy is it now?
48:08
Oh, it's normal for me to go help this person or to, yeah, I mean,
48:16
or to be kind to this person or to offer my services or my help or my labor to someone or anything.
48:24
And you can still do that. You can be a savage and still do that.
48:28
But like the difference in being a savage and doing that is,
48:32
if you go out Saturday night and get absolutely smashed and take home a bar
48:38
fly and wake up at noon Sunday morning.
48:43
With some dirty bird laying next to you.
48:47
Or if you could have gotten up at seven and, you know, taking your son to the
48:54
airport because he needed to for his job or something. You see what I mean?
48:59
So it's just little stuff.
49:02
And it's not even meant to be judgmental on that. It's just your habits support who you are.
49:10
Do the habits to support who you want to be.
49:14
And like I said many of you are perfectly happy being godless heathens drive
49:18
on I love you the way so those are the things that are attractive to us and
49:22
what we gotta do is kind of.
49:27
Shape ourselves and our environment to make being good more attractive. We got to reframe.
49:37
Those superficial desires, those superficial cravings, those temptations.
49:44
We got to reframe those up and make those unattractive.
49:49
So, and let me give you, for example, so maybe you had of dalliance with a little special friend.
49:58
And when you do that, it feels good. Yeah. Doesn't it?
50:02
But you think right now, well, I'm giving up.
50:07
If I'm giving this up, I'm giving it up and it feels good. And I got to give
50:12
this up. So now I can, so that I can be, don't think of it like that.
50:17
Think of it like you're gaining an opportunity to spend more quality time with
50:21
your spouse or your family.
50:23
I'm not giving up sexual frivolity, gaining more quality time with the people
50:29
who really care about me.
50:30
Because your little dalliances, they don't give a shit about you.
50:34
They don't give a shit about you. They're living in their own problems.
50:40
So don't look at it like you're forced to get up every morning to go to the
50:43
gym or that you're forced to do fitness every day when the kid lays down.
50:48
Don't look at it like that.
50:50
Look at it like you have an opportunity for 30 minutes of free time to make myself more healthy.
50:57
So instead of forced to do this thing that in the moment is uncomfortable,
51:04
look at it like, man, I get to spend this much time making myself healthy and sweating it out.
51:11
Yeah, reframe it. Reframe the way you look at it. Make the good things more
51:15
attractive and make the bad things unattractive.
51:21
Because all of the attractive things, the bad things that are attractive now currently.
51:28
Short-term. They're all instant gratification and they have a shelf life of
51:33
like fucking 10 minutes. They're gone.
51:37
The good habits have lasting long-term effects.
51:41
It feels good five years down the road and then forever.
51:46
Consider that. Consider that. I don't,
51:52
I've, I used to be a womanizer a long time ago and for And yes,
51:58
sex feels good in the moment with, well, not necessarily a stranger,
52:05
but yeah, basically a stranger.
52:07
It feels good in the moment, but that feeling is literally gone instantly.
52:14
You guys have heard of post-nut clarity, I'm sure.
52:17
Well, I've been, my wife, we've been married for 30 years this month.
52:26
And without disrespecting anyone what we have.
52:35
Dare i say earth shattering sex it's because there's a connection it's good
52:39
it's it's right and it's correct and it's long term neither one of us are are,
52:46
supermodels you know what i mean,
52:49
but we have the connection and we have the physical with something you can't get from the short term,
52:56
something you can't get from the instant feel good of of laying with somebody
53:01
who you don't you know you don't even know that well or whatever yeah.
53:08
Goodness attractive and make the badness unattractive.
53:14
That was law number two, make it attractive. Law number three, make it easy.
53:20
Just like back in law number one, where we made it obvious, we set our environment
53:27
up to be conducive, right? So we set our environment up.
53:31
We try now, we're trying to make it attractive and make, not only is our environment
53:35
conducive to doing a good habit, but the good habit looks good.
53:40
I want to do the habit. Now we got to make it easy to do.
53:44
And here's a good thing I picked up out of this book.
53:49
Movement alone is not action. It's just movement.
53:54
If it's not getting somewhere.
53:58
So for instance, movement would be, okay,
54:02
I'm planning okay here's what's going to happen I'm going to go to the gym then
54:06
I'm going to do this I'm going to do that that's movement it's mental it ain't
54:11
just necessarily physical right,
54:13
action is you turn the key and you drive your ass to the gym that's action then
54:19
you go in and out you're in the environment,
54:22
so understand that we can all there's a lot of people who do a lot of moving,
54:28
but it's all inefficient and it's not accomplishing anything.
54:33
Movement is not action. It's because you're scurrying around doesn't mean anything's
54:36
happening. It's just chaos. It's just pointless chaos.
54:42
And prepping for a task can be a very clever form of procrastination.
54:49
I'm preparing to do this.
54:51
All right, well, two days later, all right, yeah, I'm preparing to do it.
54:55
I'm bad about that with yard work.
54:59
And now my form of procrastination is that my tractor's broke.
55:04
Procrastination. My tractor's legitimately broke, but yeah, procrastination,
55:09
man. That's what preparation can turn into procrastination.
55:14
Be careful on that.
55:17
So making it easy means you make good habits kind of easier to accomplish.
55:23
You transfer the friction from the good habit that seemed hard at first,
55:27
transfer that friction to the bad habit.
55:31
Make bad habits harder to to do and i like clear has this this two minute rule,
55:39
so it's a unique tactic and i like it,
55:44
to where any new habit you're trying to do you scale it down to two minutes,
55:49
just just to taste so because normally when we make goals right it's what we
55:57
do we're like okay here's the goal,
56:00
and we don't have any process to back it up so we go okay well I'm going to
56:04
read five chapters a night before bed five chapters that seems reasonable right,
56:10
you lay down your bed put your head on the pillow you hold a book up chapter and a half gone.
56:19
So smaller bites man read for two minutes,
56:26
that's it however many pages you get done in two minutes not even a chapter
56:30
right it's a couple pages,
56:32
close book lay down lay ahead do that for a minute do that for a while a few days a week,
56:41
and then you're going to find it like well i can probably get another then pretty
56:45
soon you get okay i can at least i'm going to get through this chapter,
56:49
incrementally push that up you're building your system,
56:53
first thing is that you're just making time to lay down with a book in your hand.
56:57
Yeah, that's an example, right? I rarely read hard books anymore. I'm an audible.
57:04
Still, that's an example. When it comes to fitness, everybody wants to take
57:09
off a big bite. Yeah, I'm going to start running five miles a day.
57:12
No, you're not. Start for two minutes. I know that's ridiculous,
57:16
right? Put your PT clothes on.
57:20
Put your walking shoes on, your running shoes.
57:24
Start your clock. Walk up out the driveway. You hit one minute,
57:30
turn around and come back.
57:32
And then go carry on with your day. Next time, walk out and do that for a week.
57:37
Pretty soon you're going to feel like, okay, I can do more than this,
57:40
right? So add a few minutes to it.
57:44
Walk out for two minutes, walk back for two minutes. Next thing you know,
57:47
you're walking for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. Next thing you know,
57:50
you're running instead.
57:53
You've made time for it. You've got prepared for it. You've got your clothes on. You're ready.
57:57
You've got your water with you. Incrementally build it up. You're building the system.
58:03
I'll start out with a ridiculous, I'm going to go run five miles a day.
58:06
Have a heart attack and die. It's like 104 degrees yesterday. Madness.
58:11
Bites, little bites. Make it easy.
58:14
There's nothing wrong with that. That's not laziness. That's you recognizing
58:18
that I need to build a system.
58:21
Yeah. Small bites. Showing up is a big deal. You hear people say it all the
58:28
time. All you got to do is show up.
58:30
And that's to do with environment, right? For me, it's the gym.
58:34
If I just go to the gym, I'll do the things I need to do because I'm there.
58:40
What else am I going to do?
58:43
Up. Make it a habit to show up. You can increase intensity or whatever as you go.
58:52
Slow movement is still movement, right? Slow forward motion.
58:56
That's action. Slow forward motion.
58:59
As long as you're not stagnant, as long as you're not moving backwards.
59:02
You're not accommodating laziness. That's not what it's about at all.
59:06
You're just being very practical about the way you're implementing things.
59:11
So put the good habit on the path of least resistance. Make it easy to do the good thing.
59:17
The hard thing, make it difficult.
59:20
Make it difficult. Make it require extra steps.
59:25
Make it require extra money. Make it be inconvenient to do the bad thing,
59:30
the hard thing, the tough thing, or the negative thing.
59:36
Make goodness easy so make goodness obvious,
59:43
make goodness attractive make goodness easy and then the fourth rule is make it satisfying yeah,
59:54
because what is satisfying to us what feels good to us gets repeated,
1:00:03
and that's the problem with addiction that's the problem with porn that's the
1:00:07
problem with gambling it's the problem with booze,
1:00:10
when you're about four jacking cokes into it you're feeling good and you want
1:00:15
to repeat that you wanted to stay at that problem is it never stays.
1:00:22
Because seven jacking cokes into it you're cross-eyed think the world I was
1:00:27
plotting on you. You're going to try to beat everybody up.
1:00:34
Yeah. Casual sex is satisfying in the moment.
1:00:39
It's good until you get there. And then next thing you know,
1:00:45
you're like, well, what the hell am I doing?
1:00:48
And then you got to go to the clinic, make sure everything's all good, right?
1:00:54
It's temporary. It might be satisfying in the moment, but it's temporary.
1:00:59
And even then, is it really satisfying?
1:01:05
Unfortunately the human brain is not really wired for delayed gratification
1:01:09
we're we were wired for instant especially in america especially in the modern day,
1:01:14
especially with all this consumerism and all the things and the internet it's
1:01:18
all there all the time instantly,
1:01:21
that's bad for us really it's bad for us but so we we got to create instant
1:01:26
gratification for the good habits The problem is with the gym,
1:01:30
right? I go to the gym, I lift weights.
1:01:33
I don't look like Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately. That's a delayed thing.
1:01:37
Now, I might feel a little better, and I might notice, like,
1:01:41
okay, my strength. Yeah, I'm stronger.
1:01:44
I can feel improvement, but you can't see improvement. And all everybody really
1:01:49
wants is to look the part, right?
1:01:54
Yeah. I don't really care about looking the part. I would like to look the part.
1:01:58
But I'm getting stronger. I can run further and longer.
1:02:03
So good. I can see improvement. But it's slow. It's incremental.
1:02:07
It's over weeks and weeks.
1:02:10
It's got to be that way. That's the way it is when you're building good habits.
1:02:16
But what you want to do is try to make the bad habits immediately unsatisfying.
1:02:22
Immediately. And I can tell you nothing. It's never more obvious.
1:02:27
My wife and I will spend a few weeks eating.
1:02:33
Pretty easy, you know, some just grilled chicken or baked chicken,
1:02:37
some rice and we'll, you know, small portions, you know, I won't drink tea,
1:02:45
you know, sweet tea is my kryptonite.
1:02:48
I'll drink water, constantly water.
1:02:51
And then one, one day something will happen where we're off schedule or something,
1:02:57
and, oh, my God, we'll go to McDonald's and get a burger,
1:03:02
and just, it's like, man, it smells so good. These fries, meh.
1:03:09
One bite into it, you're like, oh, my God. It's instantly demoralizing.
1:03:18
It's instantly, you're instantly, you know you've made a mistake.
1:03:23
One bite into it and you're like, this is, what am I doing? What am I doing?
1:03:32
Dissatisfying. I used to murder
1:03:34
McDonald's, man. It's become dissatisfying because I know what it's doing.
1:03:41
And then even the taste is not there anymore. I'm like, no, man.
1:03:48
It smells good. And I say, okay, yeah, this one's going to be just like the commercial.
1:03:53
None of them are made with any love, man.
1:03:56
I'm not even sure it's real meat. That's probably not. I don't know.
1:03:58
I've never seen any documentaries like that.
1:04:02
All right. Make it dissatisfying. Write down your little wins,
1:04:07
your little accomplishments along the way. Yeah, write those down.
1:04:11
That's kind of satisfying for some people. When you can go across the calendar,
1:04:15
you can see for like three whole weeks you did a thing, a good thing.
1:04:18
You're like, oh man, staying with it.
1:04:21
That works on you and mentally it works on you. You're like,
1:04:24
yeah, that's good. I'm going to keep this up. It wasn't so hard after all.
1:04:28
When you look back on a thing you've been doing for two months in a row,
1:04:30
you're like, eh, not so bad.
1:04:34
And he wrote this in the book, and I agree. If you miss once, don't miss twice.
1:04:39
If you miss the gym, don't let tomorrow pick it up.
1:04:44
Correct course quickly when it comes to good habits versus bad habits.
1:04:50
Correct course quickly. And then I wrote down here, accountability buddy.
1:04:57
There's an episode of South Park where.
1:05:01
It was like a pray away the gay Bible camp thing and all the kids were.
1:05:07
Anyway, when you showed up, butters, you got to have an accountability buddy,
1:05:11
somebody to be with to keep you on track.
1:05:17
Real life, man. Have somebody who like you kind of, you can't bullshit,
1:05:22
you know, like your best friend knows, right?
1:05:26
Say, all right, look, man, we're doing this. All right. And then he holds you to it.
1:05:31
Have a friend like that or someone like that, that you can be held to,
1:05:37
held to whatever standard it is you're trying to be held to.
1:05:41
Your spouse would be a good one. Yeah.
1:05:44
Yeah. or a legitimate friend, like a proper friend who, not somebody who just
1:05:49
wants to sleep with you or whatever, or just have drinks. You're the good time.
1:05:57
A legitimate friend, the real friend.
1:06:01
One of the reasons I like the podcast, and this is on the same track,
1:06:06
public commitment, saying a thing out loud for the world to hear.
1:06:11
Well, if you do that, you kind of are held to that, right?
1:06:16
You don't want to look like a hypocrite to the world. I wouldn't think. I don't.
1:06:22
And I hope throughout all these podcasts that there haven't been very many contradictions.
1:06:26
I don't imagine there have. It's possible.
1:06:29
Now, I agree that people do evolve on certain topics, I guess.
1:06:35
But like if I come on the podcast and I tell you that I'm going to the gym,
1:06:40
I'm going to go to the gym.
1:06:41
Now, you don't know me, but there's plenty of people that do, right?
1:06:46
So I like the podcast in that it sort of holds you accountable.
1:06:54
I'm not pushing agendas or anything. I'm an independent guy,
1:06:57
and that's rule number one. I'm not up here pushing an agenda.
1:07:03
I talk a lot about libertarianism and a little bit about Christianity. Thank you.
1:07:11
That's crazy stuff. So say a thing out loud at work in front of all your workmates.
1:07:19
I'm going to go do this.
1:07:22
I'm trying to build this process.
1:07:27
Get somebody to help out with it. But at minimum, just say it out loud so that
1:07:32
other people are now, they're kind of watching. Like, well, is he going to do
1:07:34
what he says he does? Yeah.
1:07:38
That's a way. That's a tool to help you. Yeah.
1:07:41
And then when you do what you say you're going to do and people give you praise
1:07:47
for that, it feels real good.
1:07:50
It's satisfying. It's satisfying when one of my clients says,
1:07:55
man, Edgar, I'm so glad you do what you do here.
1:07:59
And most recently it was because, hey, my private sessions are cheap compared
1:08:03
to the industry standard.
1:08:05
And it's because my goal is to get as many people trained as possible.
1:08:10
Yeah, I need to make a living, but I ain't trying to get rich off working,
1:08:15
man. Do you know what I mean?
1:08:17
So it feels good when you get a little bit of praise because I do what I say I'm going to do.
1:08:23
Yeah, say it out loud. And then that helps you when you do good and you get
1:08:30
a little bit of praise. Some people ain't in it for praise, and I'm not.
1:08:33
I'm just saying when it's unsolicited.
1:08:36
Yeah, when it's unsolicited.
1:08:39
An unsolicited comment or compliment feels very nice.
1:08:45
Does it not make it satisfying? The good things.
1:08:51
So this, this, this habit tracking and, and this tracking your,
1:08:56
your little fails and wins at.
1:09:02
So it's not obsession. I mean, that's like a little additional habit in itself,
1:09:05
just doing those things.
1:09:07
But it's data, right? That's all you're doing is you're creating data for you
1:09:10
to look at and dispassionately look back at it and go, okay,
1:09:15
I said I was going to do this and this is what I did.
1:09:18
Sooner or later, those two lists will start to match up, I would hope.
1:09:22
And it'll feel good the more they start to match up.
1:09:26
Reward the good habits. Make them feel good Because what feels good gets repeated,
1:09:34
Punish the bad habits Because what does not feel good does not get repeated,
1:09:41
Make the goodness satisfying So the four rules, we've got to make it obvious,
1:09:46
We've got to make it attractive We've got to make it easy And we've got to make it satisfying,
1:09:55
And if those things are in place we will start to build the good habits because
1:10:01
they will be all of these things.
1:10:05
Good habits are important that they're what they keep us in the game right they keep us in the game,
1:10:13
is there a downside to good habits well yes and no,
1:10:19
anything you do habitually like like right You have to, you still have to do
1:10:25
a little periodic check on that to make sure the habit you built is still supporting,
1:10:32
the person you want to be.
1:10:36
Sort of evolved. And that don't mean you dropped a certain thing or went regressed
1:10:42
or backslid or whatever else.
1:10:45
What it means is, is you just evolved a little bit and the process needs,
1:10:51
needs to veer left or right a little bit. You just need to change asthma by a couple of degrees.
1:10:56
And that's fine. Ask yourself, is this thing I'm doing still good?
1:11:00
And is it still supporting the positive change that I needed.
1:11:05
Maybe that change happened. You're still doing the same thing,
1:11:08
and that same thing is now keeping you stagnant. It's possible.
1:11:13
Like I said, though, as long as you're not moving backwards.
1:11:16
You can move slow, don't move backwards.
1:11:20
Yeah, dynamics shift over time, so think about that. That's all.
1:11:23
Good habits aren't bad, but if they become too rigid and unchangeable.
1:11:28
Never be rigid and unchangeable.
1:11:31
You have to be flexible. I got a little catch phrase I use around here all the time.
1:11:35
I'm as flexible as a Russian ballerina. I get hit with changes daily that I have to shift.
1:11:43
I have to lift and shift all the time based on what's going on around me,
1:11:48
the things I don't have control over.
1:11:50
So be able to lift and shift. So yeah, Yeah. It's not necessarily the habits. Yes.
1:11:58
Always be analyzing. Is this still supporting what I want, what I want to be doing?
1:12:03
Or is this, this is no longer beneficial or is it beneficial?
1:12:07
Always have that process.
1:12:12
But the good results that come from good habits, it's not because of the intensity
1:12:18
that you did a thing or because of how much emotion or passion you put into a thing.
1:12:25
I'm very unemotional and dispassionate about going to the gym.
1:12:29
I don't love it. That's not the point.
1:12:33
That's not the point at all. I'm too old not to go to the gym.
1:12:37
If I sit, if I'm sedentary in my life, I'm going to, I can't be, you can't be.
1:12:44
I think one of the secrets to growing old is you need to become more active the older you get.
1:12:52
Keep the old ticker working and keep the body moving. That's my opinion.
1:12:57
It's not the intensity. It's not the emotion. It's not the passion. It's the consistency.
1:13:03
It's the consistency. and that consistency with a periodic asthma check.
1:13:08
And you'd be good to go. Correct course as needed as you're moving forward.
1:13:16
You master your good habits, you tweak the good habits, and you keep moving
1:13:21
forward. That's how you stay in the game.
1:13:24
All right. Always, as always, I always try to talk about a little practical
1:13:27
application. Now, these were all very practical things, I think.
1:13:31
And I hope you wrote those four laws down. If you're a small business owner,
1:13:35
look at how your systems in your shop work or the way you take in money or the
1:13:41
way you track customers or the way you track appointments.
1:13:47
What what's your first what's your first interaction of the day is it positive,
1:13:54
is that a metric you think about maybe make it a metric you think about,
1:13:59
like make that a thing like first customer of the day i'm gonna greet with a
1:14:02
smile handshake good to see you make that a thing that's a good habit.
1:14:08
Customer service is king, folks. That's in my opinion. Customer service.
1:14:14
Just strive to be 1% better as an entrepreneur, as a businessman,
1:14:17
as whatever, or progress your skill just a little bit.
1:14:23
What about as a parent or a spouse?
1:14:26
Do that two-minute drill I said where you just, if you're not present with your children regularly,
1:14:33
make it a point that when they come home when they come in the door you spend
1:14:37
two minutes gathered around talking about the day i love you what'd you do give
1:14:44
me the 30 second elevator pitch.
1:14:49
Make the environment in your house conducive to being together,
1:14:54
a place where everybody can sit down and talk to each other.
1:14:56
TV's not constantly on and blaring.
1:14:59
Yeah? Because these good habits that you model in front of your children,
1:15:04
that's what they're going to pick up on.
1:15:06
So they're either already on track to have bad habits or good habits based on you.
1:15:12
Yeah, based on the way you talk to people Based on the words you say About people,
1:15:20
Based on your tone And your attitude Your kids are watching it They're hearing it through the door.
1:15:29
What about as a first responder?
1:15:31
Well, what's some good habits as a first responder? Some after action habits, right?
1:15:37
Some post-mission Sort of rituals to help you stay if something was particularly traumatic,
1:15:44
you come back to the shop, you get your head clear, whatever it is,
1:15:49
man, maybe you just zone out on, maybe you read a book.
1:15:53
Yeah, you got your reports to write, but then when it's time to decompress,
1:15:58
how do you decompress? Do you decompress?
1:16:01
Maybe it's PT, you know, maybe it's reading a little bit of,
1:16:06
hell, a comic book, Something just to get you in a different, who knows what.
1:16:12
Good after action habit. It's a good thing. Is your sleep cycle good?
1:16:18
That's important because when you're, a lot of first responders are on these
1:16:22
weird 24 hour cycles and you get, you get broken sleep.
1:16:26
Sometimes you get plenty of sleep and sometimes you get zero sleep.
1:16:30
That's a very military thing too. When you're deployed and you're on the 24
1:16:34
hour sort of cycle there.
1:16:40
Well, for any first responder PT, to include paramedics, to include firefighters,
1:16:45
to include cops, PT is important. You need to be physically fit.
1:16:49
You ain't got to be a dang pro athlete, but you need to be fit enough to handle business.
1:16:55
And for a paramedic, what does that mean?
1:16:58
You might have to underhook a 400-pounder to get them up on a gurney or something.
1:17:06
Yeah, think about that stuff. PT is important in your job.
1:17:11
Make your habits conducive to it. Every time you come back into the shop,
1:17:15
knock out five pull-ups.
1:17:18
Yeah. We used to have a team room where we had a pull-up bar right over.
1:17:21
Well, it was like a, it was like a Quonset hut hooch.
1:17:25
Had a pull-up door, a bar right outside the door. You could,
1:17:28
you had to do pull-ups to get in, come in.
1:17:31
And when you go, go out, you didn't have to do them. Our, our SOP was you had
1:17:34
to do pull-ups to come in.
1:17:40
Team culture is it a positive team culture yeah are y'all friendly are y'all
1:17:46
open with each other and do you trust each other develop those habits to where
1:17:50
you can build that stuff it's important,
1:17:53
good good leadership and i did the episode on followership it's the same,
1:17:59
incremental good little habits to be a good dude repeated small acts of goodness.
1:18:08
Yes yep and what about just being a good citizen a good neighbor good person,
1:18:14
good character comes from the things that you do when nobody's watching you
1:18:18
right when you pick up the little piece of trash on the sidewalk nobody sees
1:18:22
it when you push the buggy back,
1:18:26
to the to the grocery store nobody's watching that that's good character do
1:18:32
that do those things because good character happens downstream of what everybody else sees.
1:18:39
That's not where a character is developed in front of other people.
1:18:42
It does show up when other people are watching, but it gets developed when no one's watching.
1:18:48
Holding the door open for people. Things like that. Little things.
1:18:52
Yeah. Turn those little things into habits. Make yourself useful instead of just opinionated.
1:18:59
Everybody's opinionated. That's all this is. The podcast is all opinion.
1:19:04
But I try to make myself useful also in other ways.
1:19:10
So this framework that Clear builds in this book, which is brilliant. It's a brilliant book.
1:19:17
It's compatible with older wisdom, you know, like, well, from Benjamin Franklin even.
1:19:22
But even from the Stoics of old, the virtue charts, you know,
1:19:28
the tracking of virtue or the, well, from the military, after action reviews.
1:19:33
After action reviews work across the board on many things.
1:19:37
Any action, any major life event, you can sit down after the fact and try to
1:19:44
figure out, like, why was this such chaos?
1:19:48
Where did we go wrong? That's an after-action review.
1:19:51
Ain't got to be hyper-formal, but, you know, structure it up a little bit.
1:19:56
What about SOPs? Every business has an SOP.
1:20:00
Every shop, every police agency, well, most police agencies have an SOP.
1:20:07
For the way they do business. Every military unit, every ODA has an SOP for
1:20:13
the way they do frigging everything.
1:20:16
He can have a little family SOP. Again, don't have to be hyper-formalized, but somewhat.
1:20:23
He builds these things out in this book, and they all directly relate to some
1:20:29
other, these conventional wisdoms, these tried and true habits.
1:20:34
These are all systems that, well, that you can, the identity that you think
1:20:41
you want to create, this is how they're created. These systems create that.
1:20:49
Actioning of these systems. Yeah. All right. So again, I'm going to take a page from Nathan Hicks.
1:20:58
So get a pen and paper, write this down. All right, here we go.
1:21:02
It's a list of five practical, critical questions that I think will help you
1:21:09
start a good process to develop good habits.
1:21:14
A list, five things, write them down. What identity am I actually cultivating
1:21:20
with my current daily habits?
1:21:22
Regardless of the identity that I say I want, what identity am I actually cultivating?
1:21:28
That's number one. Number two, in my current environment, where is my environment
1:21:34
working for me and where is it working against me?
1:21:40
What habits have I been avoiding or what new habits can I apply the two-minute
1:21:47
rule to and start straight away?
1:21:51
Number four, what good habits do I have and why are they good?
1:21:56
Do they support the person I want to be?
1:21:59
And number five, who in my circle makes good behavior and good action easier?
1:22:09
And who in my circle makes good behavior and good actions harder?
1:22:15
And what do those things require of me? What supports, who in my circle supports good habits?
1:22:22
Who in my circle supports bad habits?
1:22:26
Those are the five questions, folks. Ask yourself those five things and be honest with yourself.
1:22:32
Yeah and you'll and you will develop all right,
1:22:38
good people if you haven't read atomic habits by james clear please do so it's
1:22:43
awesome it's on audible it's where i got it i don't have the hard copy,
1:22:48
atomic habits and then there's a lot of like like workbook type material in
1:22:53
fact i think this book, there's a workbook,
1:22:57
supplement to it. That's a whole workbook. Yeah, that's right.
1:23:01
I don't have that yet. I'm going to get that. But you can go on,
1:23:04
I think, atomichabits.com. I think he's got the website.
1:23:09
He mentioned it about 8 million times throughout the book.
1:23:12
I think it's atomichabits.com. And then there's all the charts and all the lists
1:23:16
and all the things that you can help physically help you to develop the good habits.
1:23:24
Challenge you, you know, do one small thing this week that the better version of you would do,
1:23:33
the person you want to be would do, do that, even if it's just one thing. If it's more, great.
1:23:41
Go make the effort to do one thing that the best version of yourself would do,
1:23:46
of the person you say you want to be. Track it, write it down.
1:23:52
Don't wait for motivation either. Just go do it.
1:23:56
Identify your cues, folks, your triggers. Ease the friction in your life.
1:24:03
Give yourself an immediate task that supports the person you want to be.
1:24:09
And it's not about you becoming.
1:24:14
You don't have to, you're not impressing anyone. It's not to impress anyone,
1:24:19
well, impress yourself, you know, but it's not about impressing anyone.
1:24:23
It's about becoming a useful human to the people around you and yourself.
1:24:29
And habits, good habits are how that happens. And they happen very quietly.
1:24:35
They happen very incrementally every day.
1:24:40
And they don't happen for praise and for spectacle. They happen without praise and spectacle.
1:24:47
So do those things, good people. Think on that and go look for that book because
1:24:52
it's awesome. Atomic Habits by James Clear.
1:24:55
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please go to Ospreyshootingsolutions.com,
1:25:01
to check out all the things we do.
1:25:04
And please hit me up with topic suggestions.
1:25:10
If there's specific things you'd like to hear my take on, please let me know.
1:25:14
I'd be happy to explore. Okay, good people.
1:25:19
Thank you very much for listening. I love you.