James Clear: How to Grow Good Ideas and Position Yourself for Success

Today, Commander Divine speaks with James Clear, the best-selling author of Atomic Habits (which has sold over 5 million copies). James discusses his process for writing and content creation, the joys and pitfalls of notoriety, how to position yourself for success, and a behind-the-scenes look of how he’s built his audience of over 1 million subscribers. Key Takeaways: When you’re struggling creatively, don’t write more – read more. Writing is like driving a car; reading is like filling your car up with gas. You need both to get anywhere on your journey. Be careful who you follow. When you choose who to follow online, you’re choosing your future thoughts – choose wisely. Consistency is the most important practice for better writing. James prefers to not be dependent on a single circumstance to be able to write. As long as you’re doing the work, you don’t have to get hung up on having a specific routine. Ask yourself: How can you give people the highest value in the easiest way possible? When you apply this philosophy to every area of your business, it’s hard not to get better results. A lot of success comes from good positioning. Take advantage of external forces that work in your favor, create work that keeps working for you after it’s done, and choose work that has a limited downside and an unlimited upside. You don’t need things to go perfectly all the time when you have a lot of really strong forces working in your favor. Quotes: “Pretty much every idea that you have is downstream from what you consume” “This is one of the huge benefits of having an email list and audience… Not only do you have an audience to launch a podcast or a product to, but it’s also live testing… I knew by the time I signed my book deal that these were the top 20 ideas that did really well” “I put all this pressure on myself to spend more time writing, but it ironically got worse. If the writing isn’t good enough, if I feel like I’m struggling to come up with something creative, I actually don’t need to spend more time wr