Creating Atomic Habits with James Clear

There’s plenty of advice in the entrepreneurial community on habits. But what are atomic habits and how can you take the reins to create some of your own? And why would you want to? The man to answer those questions is my friend, James Clear.

James is an author, an incredibly prolific blogger, writer, weightlifter, photographer, and entrepreneur. We met a few years ago via email when he was operating a site called Passive Panda, which was a successful passive income-generating web site.

Despite having an email list of 25,000 subscribers, one day he decided to scrap the site and delete the list. From there, he started his current site JamesClear.com and would go on to write his best-selling book, Atomic Habits.

James' journey has been a very interesting one, in particular his decision to scrap Passive Panda, and I wanted to know how and why he got started as a blogger. James shared that his motivation stemmed from a desire for control of his time and to feel more fully utilized.

Eventually, James discovered he didn't know how to market anything, so he started blogging to get an audience and build an email list. As a result of his blog, James discovered an affinity for exploring and share ideas, which has brought him down an extraordinary path.

We talk about what he has learned on that path, as well as how to right the ship if you don't have the results you want on this edition of The Portfolio Life with James Clear.

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Show highlights

In this episode, James explains:

Why is he interested in habits?
What skill is going to become increasingly important?
How did he know he was on the right track after shutting down Passive Panda?
Whatever is successful right now is only successful for this one reason: what is that reason?
What does it mean to be idea-agnostic?

[share-quote author=”James Clear” via=”JeffGoins”]Try things until something comes easily.

On incremental growth

How does environment influence us?
What is the best way to find your ideal product/market fit?
What aspect of writing does he love the most?
What should drive the work you do?
How and why to be the person who shows up every day.

[share-quote author=”James Clear” via=”JeffGoins”]Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.

On his book, Atomic Habits

Where did the concept for Atomic Habits come from?
How did he choose his publishing agent?
Was it his plan to spend 3 years writing Atomic Habits?
Why did he choose the term atomic for this book's title?
How many pages did he write originally?

Resources

What one thing are you going to do today to start your own atomic habit?