Clay Clark | Atomic Habits | Exclusive Interview w/ Best-Selling Author of Atomic Habits, James Clear + Tiny Changes That Produce Big Results + Celebrating the 52% Year Over Year Growth of PODIATRIST, Jayson Phelps (Infinity Foot & Ankle)

Audio Transcription

I mean the guy is, he is who he is and he does a great job of making sure everybody’s on the same page and everybody’s putting their best foot forward. You can’t just stick your toe in the water, especially you know you got your foot up in the air. You want to go out there and just put your best foot forward. He’s got great feet, you know he has good feet. He’s another guy that has great feet. You want to make sure that you bring your best foot forward out there. Let’s go out there and being good little foot soldiers, you definitely have to be on your toes and make sure that you’re ready to go. The game’s afoot, huh? And now, without any further ado, it is now time for another edition of… Wings of the League! Do the bull dance. Feel the flow. You can do it! Feelin’ the flow. You can do it! Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, it’s Business School Without the B.S. We’re gonna win with every single facet. We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, please, please, it’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore. Mr. President. It’s too much and I’ll say no It is it we have to keep winning. We have to win more. We’re going to win more Name’s Jason Phelps and I am self-employed infinity foot and ankle Boom, there it is. And how has your company grown in? 2019 since you started working with the Flytime show? We were just chatting about these numbers a few minutes ago. Gross revenues increased 52% since last December. There you go. And what things have you implemented that has caused that growth? Well almost all the recommendations that you guys have made. That’s good stuff. Tell me about the video testimonials and how your team has been getting those and what kind of an impact they’ve had. I would say we’ve probably been doing video reviews for about three months now. Most of the patients I think kind of do a quick glance as you go online, take a look, and so they see that. So all around us, they’ll drive pretty far to come in and see us, primarily because our reviews are so good. And how far are people, how far is someone driven to come out and see you? Yeah, a couple of nearby states. People have people come in. One that’s come in from Alabama, and a couple that have come in from South Carolina. So they’ll come in from neighboring states to see us because of our reviews. And you’re located in Loganville, is that right? Yeah, Loganville, a suburb of Atlanta. OK, perfect. And how has being on top of Google between SEO and those Google reviews, how has that affected when someone searches your keyword, you popping up top, how has that affected you? It’s made a huge difference. We get people all the time that come in and tell us they come in because they’ve seen us first page on the Google Internet search, and also because they’ve got great reviews, had to drive in and see if they’ll pass up other providers that are closer to them to come see us because of that. Good stuff. And so what are your weekly meetings with the Thrived Time Show like? They’re awesome. Usually get me back on track if I’m getting a little bit off track. They help keep me accountable and keep me focused on the things that matter. Good stuff. And what would you say to someone who is considering growing their business to the next level I don’t think you can possibly find another way that will more efficiently get you there than working with Ryan. Hey, my name is Dr. Timothy Johnson from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I first heard about Clay and his team from their podcast, the one he hosts with Dr. Robert Zellner. I was really impressed with what he had to say and reached out to them for business coaching. I went to a business conference and kind of became hooked. I’ve learned a lot in the process. The main thing I’ve learned is about search engine domination. I’ve learned the importance of being at the top of search engines such as Google and YouTube and Amazon. And it’s really changed our business. Another thing that’s helped that he’s taught us is systemization and processes in terms of just making sure to do the small things every day and so I would definitely check out his new book Search Engine Domination. Thank you. Are you good at setting goals but poor at achieving them? I mean are you really really good at setting goals, but do you struggle to turn your big ideas into big? Results well on today’s show we’re interviewing the best-selling author of the book atomic habits by James clear an Easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones in his remarkable book James clear teaches tiny Changes that will produce remarkable results right like almost by definition your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results I like it And maybe we could even say like whatever habits you’ve been using or following for the last say six months are Perfectly designed to deliver your current results. That’s your system Whatever system you’ve been running recently that leads to the outcome that you can use to become habitually successful. The kind of person who becomes successful as a result of the habits you have. You know, maybe 90% of the time, let’s say, should be spent on your habits and building a better system. And maybe 10% of the time on checking in on your goals and making sure you’re moving in the right direction. Whereas a lot of the time it seems like the conversation is reversed. That we’re spending all this time talking about building a bigger vision or getting more motivated or whatever and in reality it’s the system that drives the outcome. You know, it’s like fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. What this show does, two men, eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Fried Time Show. Now, one, two, one, here we go! ♪ Started from the bottom, now we here ♪ ♪ Started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here ♪ ♪ Started from the bottom, now we here ♪ ♪ Started from the bottom, now we here ♪ ♪ Started from the bottom, now we here ♪ Yes, yes, and yes! Thrive Nation is on a very special occasion because he is here. It is James Clear on the microphone. James, how are you, sir? Hello, good to talk to you. Hey, you are kind of a living legend. And one of my long-time clients and a great entrepreneur by the name of Brett Ditton, who is the owner of Cavellfit.com with three different locations in Boise, Idaho. So big shout out to Brett Dittin. He’s the one who first told me about your book. Right away, do you have any life tips for Brett Dittin? Just throw out a life tip for Brett Dittin. It’s feel free to… No life tips. Sounds like he’s reading my book, which is the best that I could hope for. So just thankful and sharing some gratitude. I appreciate the kind words. Now, he has told me that your book, Atomic Habits, is a life-changing book. So I want to ask you, what inspired you first to write this book? Well, I came to the topic in a couple of different ways, but my first exposure, long before I really knew that I was being exposed to habits or learning about the topic, was through an injury. Before I was born, my dad played professional baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals. He played in the minor leagues. And you know, sports played a big part of my childhood and I wanted to be an athlete as well. I played a variety of things growing up until my sophomore year of high school when I was hit in the face with a baseball bat. And it was a very serious injury. I broke my nose, broke the bone behind your nose, which is called your ethmoid bone, shattered both eye sockets, taking a stretcher to the hospital, ended up being more serious than that. I kind of lost the ability to breathe on my own. I had multiple seizures. I had to be air-cared to a larger facility. The fallout from that injury was significant. I couldn’t drive a car for the next nine months. I was practicing basic motor patterns like walking in a straight line in my first physical therapy session. And so that was the first time in my life when I was forced to start small. You know, like I, I didn’t really have a choice. I had to focus on these little behaviors, things that almost seem like insignificant, but going for, you know, going to bed at the same time each night. This was the first time in my life that once physical therapy was done, I started strength training at first once or twice a week, and then going to the gym three or four times. All of these things, whether it was going to sleep at the same time or preparing for class for an hour each day, they were tiny, but they gave me a sense of control over my life again. That was my first exposure to small habits and building them. Gradually, they helped me recover, eventually make it back onto the baseball field. I ended up having a good career myself as a college athlete and made the Academic All-America team my senior year. And so I never played professionally, but that was sort of my first exposure to small habits being a method for overcoming challenges, maximizing your potential, and sort of making the most of things. And it was only in the five or ten years that followed that, after my playing career was done that I started studying the science of habits more, writing about them, and now doing all the work that I do at JamesClear.com where I write about it, and ultimately, which led to the publishing of Atomic Habits. Now, you had that five-year window after college where you began writing about it and researching about it. What jobs did you have along the way? Did you have some odd jobs? How did you support yourself as you were sort of becoming the habit guru. Well so I went straight from undergrad to graduate school. While I was in graduate school getting my MBA I studied in the Center for Entrepreneurship. So the only real normal job that I’ve had aside from like summer jobs and stuff in high school and whatnot was an internship that I had in medical practice between my first and second year of grad school and I was considering medical school at the time and was interested in the Field and so it made sense and then I finished I went back for my second year graduated and I had an internship in the or sorry a graduate assistantship in the Center for entrepreneurship while I was in graduate school and I saw these people starting their own companies, and so I kind of got the itch to start my own thing, too. Yeah, so I graduated in June and in September I had a project I was working on and I finished that and in September I started my my business. So that was September 2010 For the first two years. I kind of flopped around tried a bunch of different ideas. It didn’t really work very well and then eventually stumbled my way into writing about habits and behavior change. And I was more interested in being an entrepreneur. So I was doing mostly, I was mostly interested in like growing the business, building an email list, building out the web platform, etc. And along the way, I kind of discovered that I liked writing. I didn’t set out to be a writer. I sort of found it as I was writing to try to market the business. For those first two years, to answer your question, I was paying the bills by doing just like odd jobs, web design gigs, occasionally some consulting stuff or something, but who’s going to hire a consultant who’s 24 and just out of graduate school? So I did a few things to pay the bills and get by, and then once I started writing at JamesClear.com, my first article went up November 12, 2012. And it took me about a year to make a full-time income from it, but after that first year I was kind of off to the races. Now for people out there that don’t understand how search engines work, you have to be consistent with the search engine content. I mean you have to write that content and you have to make sure your website is compliant to all of Google’s standards. But once your website is built and it’s search engine friendly you got to keep writing how many articles have you written? I don’t know the exact number. It’s in the hundreds. I haven’t written a thousand, but it’s in the hundreds I wrote a kind of a writing habit that launched my career so to speak was I Published that first article from November 12 2012 yep and starting at that date I said all right I’m gonna try to write a new article every Monday and Thursday, and I didn’t hit it perfectly, but for those first three years. I was pretty close I almost every twice a week almost every week. I was writing art new articles and so It was really that consistent writing habit. Yeah that led to the growth of the site Some of those ideas made their way into atomic habits in one form or another the book was largely either brand new or a total rewrite, but I would say maybe 10% of the content came from that. And ultimately, that writing habit led to the growth of my platform and getting the attention of publishers and book agents as well. So I would not have had the book deal if I hadn’t done that writing up front. How many articles did you write, and how long was it before you had landed your first customer from your website? That’s an interesting question. I’ve never thought about it. I think, so I was gaining traction pretty quickly, but it was not in sales. And what I mean is that I was writing articles and I would say within like five articles or so, I was able to get a news outlet to republish one of them. And so that drove even more people back and so I tried to do that a lot over the first year I would say I probably had written somewhere between 50 and 75 articles Wow before I got my first sale and Those articles usually took me about 10 to 20 hours a piece So I was doing you know two week was basically a full-time job And then I had all the other stuff that was kind of going on with the business. So yeah, it was probably, it’s a little bit hard to answer because if I had optimized for that, if I had optimized for trying to get a sale as fast as possible, it could have been earlier. But instead, I had tried that in previous projects and I thought it was a mistake. So this time around, I optimized for, let me try to provide as much value as possible and build the audience, build the platform. And then I know once I have readers, I’ll have options for driving revenue. So I was focused more on growth than on sales in the beginning. Now if it’s okay, I’m going to, Josh, you can hold me a candle here. I’m going to be kind of a bromantic for a second. James, I have heard that your emails are hot. Now I’ve heard, and I’m just, I’ve heard they’re hot. I’ve heard they’re hot and when I hear hot, this is like right away I think of Kenny G’s song bird. I think about the song that probably led to my conception. That’s why I’m, Brett said these emails are hot and I’m going, how hot are they, Brett? He goes, these are good. And I just want to ask you, because right there on your website, JamesClear.com, people can download the free chapter. It’s irrefutable and undisputable that your emails are hot, they’re good, they’re valuable. But how important is it for all the listeners out there who want to grow a platform like you, how important is it to have an opportunity to gather email addresses from website visitors? How critical is that or how critical is it not? Well I mean, this is true of any advice I think, which is that does it apply to your context. So I think the first question is what kind of business are you trying to build but assuming that you’re interested in building a business That’s somewhat of a similar structure to mine That revolves around having an online platform. I my personal opinion is that email is the most important platform now, I’ve Started to change my tune a little bit in the last couple years in the sense that I think social media is more Important now than it was before still not nearly as important as email, but I do think it can be powerful. And having a website, and that website is its own platform, and like ranking in Google, as you had mentioned, and whatnot, that also can be powerful. But all of those outlets, the people who follow me on Twitter, or follow me on Instagram, or visit my website, I consider those readers, but only the people who are on my email list do I consider to be part of my audience, part of my community. And so, that’s really where you develop a repeated relationship, I think, with somebody. You could, I will say, I do think that there is one other platform that’s like that, which is podcasting. I think if you have people who are consistent listeners and they hear you talk every week, that feels very personal, too. But more personal than email in some ways although Even though the connection is stronger. It’s harder. I think to drive behavior Through that you you don’t it’s not quite as easy to get somebody to like click on a link in an email To get somebody to do something in a podcast as it is to click on a link in an email But but yeah anyway the answer to your question is I think it’s essential and I consider the email list to be the backbone of my business And could you explain what problems you solve? I mean what when people hire you what do you what do you do? well To use the word hire is interesting because I don’t do any coaching or consulting. I do get hired to deliver keynote speeches But I more broadly think that that’s kind of like a one-off from the book. Like people liked the book, they read it, they found it useful, and so they’re like, oh, I’d really like you to talk to our business or our department about that. So I consider that to be an extension from the writing. So really, I would say the people who are hiring me, so to speak, is any reader who is giving some of their time and attention to read the work. And in the case of articles or in the case of my books, the reason that people do that is because it provides practical value for daily life. So I am, you know, there are many, many ways to do that. Of course, like people who write about personal finance, help you learn how to invest your money or how to save more, how to pay off debt or whatever. In my case, the practical application is how do I take better behaviors? How do I how do I build better habits, maintain consistency, be more productive, show up as the person I want to be and so that’s kind of where my focus is and So in that sense, it’s one part Very broad philosophy. Well, how should I look at life? How should I think about life? How do I? consider Effective paths to to follow and then it’s another part practical application. All right, cool I’m buying into this philosophy that you’re talking about, but what do I actually do? And I think that’s probably where I provide the most value. If you read Atomic Habits, for example, in a lot of the chapters, I’ll lay out a philosophy or kind of a big idea, but then the bulk of the chapter talks about how to execute it. It’s examples for how to apply it to exercise habits and writing habits and relationship habits and all kinds of other stuff. So it’s really the granular examples, the let me spoon feed it to the reader to show them how to make this actionable. I think that’s where a lot of the value comes for many of the readers and listeners. You know what I’m going to do, James? I’m going to go into rapid fire mode and then Josh Wilson, one of our incredible show sponsors, is here and he has some questions for you too. So get ready for the questions coming in fast and furious. In your book, you teach super practical laws on how to make tiny changes that will produce real remarkable results, results that Brett Dittin thinks are amazing. Could you break down just a few of the game-changing super moves in your book? So broadly speaking, if you want a new habit to stick, you want roughly four things to happen and not all four of these need to happen at the same time, but the more of them that you have working for you, the better of a position you’re in. So those four laws of behavior change are, number one, make it obvious. So you want your habits to be obvious, available, visible, easy to see. This is like, put the healthy foods on the counter and the junk food tucked away in the bottom of the pantry. Or if you want to read more, like when I wanted to build a reading habit, I moved Audible to the home screen of my phone. So it was the first thing I saw. And I put books on my desk and by my bed and just kind of like populated the environment with that. So the first law is make it obvious. The second law is make it attractive. The more attractive or appealing a habit is, the more motivating it is, the more likely you’re going to feel like you want to do it. And part of that is tied directly to the third law, which is to make it easy. So making your habits easy is about scaling them down. I recommend what I call the two-minute rule. The two-minute rule says take whatever habit you’re trying to build and scale it down to something that takes two minutes or less to do. So read 40 books a year becomes read one page. Or do yoga four days a week becomes take out my yoga mat. So you make it really easy and small. And then the fourth and final law of behavior change is to make it satisfying. And that’s all about associating your habits with some kind of positive emotion. You want your habits to be enjoyable, pleasurable, delightful, satisfying, because that gives your brain a positive signal where it says, hey, that felt good. You should do this again in the future. So one strategy for that is to select the form of a habit that is most enjoyable to you. So exercise, for example, not everybody needs to work out like a bodybuilder. Some people want to rock climb or to kayak or to go hiking or just choose whatever form of exercise brings you the most joy in the moment because that will associate that positive emotion with the behavior and make it more likely to stick. So make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying. Oh, make it blow my mind. Make it blow my mind. Now, James, what are some, why are systems in your mind, why are systems more important than goals? Well, so let me put a little finer point on what I’m describing here. So your goal is your desired outcome. It’s what you want to achieve. Your system is the collection of daily habits that you follow. And if there’s ever a gap between your system and your goal, if there’s ever a gap between your desired outcome and your daily habits, your daily habits will always win. Right, like almost by definition, your current habits are perfectly designed to deliver your current results. Right, like, and maybe we could even say like, whatever habits you’ve been using or following for the last, say, six months, are perfectly designed to deliver your current results. That’s your system. Whatever system you’ve been running recently, that leads to the outcome that you have. And so I think we could say that you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. And so if you want to change, a lot of the time people say, oh, you need to be more ambitious. You need to set bigger goals and you think bigger. You need 10 extra vision or whatever. But you know, having the goal is really the easy part. I can set a goal right now, 10 million books, it took me like three seconds. Or what you see a lot of the time in many domains is that the winners and the losers, so to speak, in any given field have the same goals. Like if 20 people are competing for the gold medal, presumably all of the athletes have the goal of winning the gold medal. Or if 100 people apply for a job, presumably every candidate has people that are getting a job. I want to interject something here. I want to interject something and maybe you disagree. I just want to throw it out, throw it back if you want. You sound like, do you read Mark Manson? Do you read Mark Manson? Yeah, I’m friends with Mark. Okay, well we had Mark on the show recently and you and Mark Manson, the subtle art of not giving an F, the author Mark Manson, you guys are the future of self-help in my mind, because you guys are that practical, real talk, and I feel like there’s a lot of good things you can get out of Napoleon Hill, and a lot of good things at a Zig Ziglar, but I am so tired of seeing people who are sufficiently motivated going to yet another seminar to set another goal and saying, if I can believe it, I can achieve it, and you’re going, but seriously, in order to get to the top of the search engines, you’re going to need to make your website canonically compliant. Your permalinks are wrong. They go, permalinks are wrong? Then you go, yeah, permalinks. You say, your keywords are wrong. Your descriptions are wrong. Your site’s not built on HTML. Your sitemap is missing. You don’t have an XML sitemap. They go, I don’t got time for that. I don’t have time. James Clear, I don’t have time for that. I’m talking about believing it and achieving it. Would you agree that you’re kind of like a new form of self-help? I mean he doesn’t like self-help 2.0. It’s like that real raw stuff Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just trying to share ideas that are true and useful You know like that’s that’s kind of like true useful clear That’s that’s like kind of my the three things that I want things to be when I when I write about them and so The way that I look at this stuff if we’re talking about systems or goals or whatever is like what actually helps me get results? What actually helps move things forward? I’m not saying goals are totally useless. Goals are useful for setting a sense of direction. They’re also useful as a filter. So if you know what your goals are and people come to you and they say, hey, I have this opportunity, do you want to join? And you’re like, well, that doesn’t help me achieve my goals, so no. So it helps you filter out and say no to things, but I have my argument is that you know maybe 90% of the time let’s say should be spent on your habits and building a better system and maybe 10% of the time on checking in on your goals and making sure you’re moving in the right direction Whereas a lot of the time it seems like the conversation is reversed that we’re spending all this time talking about Building a bigger vision or getting more motivated or whatever and in reality. It’s the system that drives the outcome. It’s like fix the inputs and the outputs will fix themselves. That is, that was hot. That was hot. Now Josh, do you have a question for the best-selling author of Atomic Habits here, Mr. James Clear? I do, James. Hey, thank you so much for taking my question and taking your time. So I can see why Brett is such a big fan of yours. It’s absolutely fire stuff here that so many of our listeners really need to apply and run out and get your book. My specific question would be, and a two minute rule, I love that, I love the four points that you brought up. If you were coaching, training, teaching your team, a team of people, and you said, oh, okay, well, we wanna form this one habit, we wanna go after this one thing, how would you start with a team of, say, 17 people that work for me? How would you start? In an office environment or in a riot environment? In an office environment? Okay, so how would you how would you start to develop a new habit? Or our new system? Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So I do think the two minute rule can be useful, or some version of it for the teams in the sense that we say, Alright, this is where we’re going to focus. This is what we’ve decided is important for our culture or for you know, our new strategic initiative or whatever. What’s the smallest unit of that? How can we scale that down and try to focus on mastering the art of showing up and at least doing that each time? This is, I think, a deeper truth about habits that people often overlook, which is a habit must be established before it can be improved. You know, like a lot of the time, especially with strategic planning or talking to teams, we’re so focused on like optimizing, let’s come up with the best plan in theory, let’s come up with the best strategy. And in reality, there’s nothing to improve if you don’t master the art of showing up. And so, let’s find a small way that we can get that habit established. So that’s probably the first thing. And then the second piece that came to my mind is, there’s a great book, it’s a business book, it’s called The Outsiders, not the book that you read in high school. It’s written by William Thorndike and he talks about these eight different CEOs that have kind of performed really well over the last hundred years and One of them is Warren Buffett, but most of the others people haven’t heard of but um Anyway, one of the people that he profiles in that book Had this very interesting thing where he took over this company starts out this little office thing was in Buffalo, New York And over the next like 30 years he ends up rising up the ranks to become CEO. But on that first day, he comes in as the manager of this little office and That somebody comes to him and says hey we need to we’re due to paint the outside of the building we need to update the the facade like what do you want us to do and he said only paint the side that faces the street and over the next 30 years cost-cutting was like a really big part of his initiative a really big part of his strategy. And the great thing about that story is it became kind of this almost like legend or folklore that could be passed throughout the company where in every budget meeting and every time they were discussing cost cutting, it could be like, how much do we care about this? Oh, so much that we only paint the side of the building that faces the street. And so whatever the new habit is that you’re trying to instill in your company, I think that leaders do have a unique position where you can come up with some kind of story, some narrative, some, I call this like controlling the narrative, and it’s some story that can represent what that value is so that you can spread that around throughout the team. People need, they need like a heuristic that they can keep top of mind whenever they’re the one making the decisions because you can’t be there looking over their shoulder at every minute. So some kind of example like that I think is good. A lot of companies actually have used the British cycling example of getting 1% better each day that I kick off Atomic Habits with. Anybody who’s interested in continuous improvement or we want our sales team to get 1% better or whatever, you can use stories like that to initiate the behavior, give somebody the anchor their behavior on. Now James, Brett Denton had a specific questions he wanted me to ask you and I said, you know what, I’m going to do it because you’re the guy who introduced me to the writing of James Clear. So here are the questions that Brett has for you. He wants to know what is your research method? It’s a good question. So I kind of broadly speaking, the real quick summary is broad funnel, tight filter. Broad funnel, tight filter. And so what that usually looks like for me is most of my research, I read a lot. I’m just kind of not in any like real big meaningful like planned out way. I just am like kind of surrounded by it a lot. I keep a lot of books by me. I keep books by my bed, in the living room, you know, whatever. Just like on my web browser, which is usually where I’m at when I’m somewhere in the browser when I’m on the computer, I usually have 10 to 20 tabs open and maybe three of those are like Gmail and Asana and like business stuff. And the other 10-ish are usually things that I’m going to read or I’m in the middle of reading. So, I’m reading a lot, so I’m taking a lot of information in. Each day I sort of have a block of time from roughly like 8 to noon where I don’t have any calls, nothing scheduled. It’s just like thinking and reading and research time. And occasionally when I come across a good idea, I toss that into Evernote or a Google Doc if I’m working on a book manuscript and I just try to pile as much stuff in there as possible. It starts to take a little bit of shape and I kind of roughly have some headings or different areas, themes that are kind of going on. But I just put all that in there and when that grows to a degree that I feel like I kind of got everything I want that’s in there, it’s like I’m… The hard thing about being a writer is that it’s kind of like being a sculptor, but you also have to build the rock to begin with before you chip it away and turn it into the… It’s a great example. It’s a great explanation. Into the statue. So all the research, the broad funnel is the building of the rock. And then in the case of Atomic Habits, the first draft was I think 720 pages. And then the final version is 250. So I build out that huge 700 page version and then I spend the next, you know, so that maybe takes a year or two years or however long. And then I spend the next six months or a year whittling it down to the statute, to the 250-page version. So broad funnel, tight filter. Final question from Brett Dittin here. He wants to know, what’s the best way in your mind to begin building an email list? And again, he owns a gym called Cavell Fit. He’s really doing well. He has three locations. Things are going great for him. What advice would you have for Brett Dittin, the owner of Cavell Fit, on how to build an email list? Well, people only sign up for emails if they think they’re going to provide them value and generally people think it’ll provide them value if it’s free and there’s some kind of like interesting idea or insight or content. Now again, this depends on the business you’re building, you know, like J.Crew is going to be offering people 20% off discount codes to get them on the email list. They’re not going to be writing blog posts. So it does depend. I don’t know exactly what the best strategy is for someone running a gym, but for me, my strategy is I’m going to try to write a couple articles a week that are free or maybe it doesn’t have to be two a week. It could be one week. It could be a one a month, even if it’s if it’s high quality and in depth just whatever pace you can stick to and so that’s the strategy and then there are some tactics that are important and You know like where do I put the forms on the page? How often do I ask people to sign up? What does the the copy say on the actual email form to get people to sign up? Some of that is is highly context dependent on the business, but it does matter. I will offer this if anybody is interested, Brett included, that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that for the way JamesClear.com is laid out, so you’re welcome to look at the site and replicate where the forms are laid out or whatever pieces are useful. I think it’s both strategy and tactics, but ultimately it comes back to the same thing it always comes back to, which is providing great value for your target audience. Okay, into the serious questions, and I’ll let you get out of here. Your favorite old-school jam? It’s middle school and we go back to middle school. What year were you a high school senior? What year were you a high school senior? 2004. Okay, so 2004. The year could be now 1999. It could be 98. Were your school dances in a gym and anyway, I’m laughing because I don’t know where you’re going with this aside from maybe asking me what song I would pick. I’m just asking, do you remember a gym? My first memory of this is that my first dance was sixth grade and when I was growing up all my parents listened to were oldies and so I did not know that music past say 1975 existed. Really? And so I walked into that gym and everybody was singing TLC No Scrubs. Oh wow. I had never heard the song before. Really? And like everybody around me knew every word. And so I was introduced very late in life I feel like to any kind of pop music or new music. I just had no idea. How often do you listen to No Scrubs now? I mean is this an atomic habit? Oh no, now it’s on repeat all the time, right? I gotta make up for lost time. Oh man, now okay, now we’re getting into that deep stuff. Do you have a favorite music artist you like today? A favorite music artist you’re into today? Yeah, I have a lot of people that I like. The first one that came to me is Eminem. I have a lot of hip hop that I like. The thing about him, I don’t necessarily agree with him on everything, and obviously he’s like super volatile, but the level of emotion that is in the music, I just, it’s like, I love stuff that feels authentic, and you’re like, when he’s singing, you’re like, yeah, he’s not faking it. Like, it’s not an act, it’s not, it’s just like, he can’t help but let it out. So I like that. On the totally other side of the spectrum, I really like Maggie Rogers. I’ve been listening to her a lot recently. And there’s actually a great, this ties in actually somewhat well with our conversation. So that question about my research process and what goes into that and how I think about it, I really love hearing from people who are dedicated to their craft and are just obsessed with it. And they can’t help but do anything except get it right. It bothers them if the details are wrong. Amen, amen. And Maggie Rogers is exactly like that. I think it was an Instagram post that she put up where one of her songs that has become a hit, she’s breaking it down. She’s showing some of her notes from when it was being recorded and some of the things that she passed back and forth to her producer and editor and stuff. And the level of thought that’s going into each note, even to each, like, when do we come in with this chime? Why is it there? Can we amp this up a little bit? It needs to be 10% higher, whatever. She cares deeply about all that, and I love that stuff. I think that when you see something really great, it’s almost never an accident. How much of a success it becomes, that might have some luck to it or whatever, but the fact that the quality is great, it’s very rare that someone stumbles into mastery. I love that kind of stuff, so I really like her work a lot, too. Oh man, I can’t wait for the next two hours of this interview. Man, I appreciate you so much for being on the show. You are just dropping knowledge bombs everywhere. Folks, go to jamesclear.com to get a clear understanding of how to create these atomic habits, these little tiny changes that will create remarkable results. Check out the website, jamesclear.com. Again, James, thank you so much for allowing us to interview you here today on the Thrivetime Show. Of course, thank you for having me. And now, without any further ado, 3, 2, 1, boom! Boom. Boom. Boom. Stop what you’re doing and think about this for a second. What would happen if your company was suddenly able to generate exponentially more quality sales leads? That would be incredible! What would happen if your company came up at the top or near the top of the Google search engine results? Well, I would just feel overwhelmed with all that business. How many thousands of dollars in lost sales or millions of dollars in lost sales are you missing out on? Simply because your potential customers can’t find you when they go online to search for the products and services that you offer I refuse to think that thought because I don’t want any more business Unless you are a dirty communist that hates money my new book search engine domination will help you grow your business. In my new book, Search Engine Domination, we will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate the search engine results. What do you mean by dominate? You see, in my new book, Search Engine Domination, we will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate search engine results. Download your free e-book copy today at thebestseobook.com. I repeat, that’s thebestseobook.com. JT, do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby! Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive Business Growth Workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow is going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. We’ve had the top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt, he has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes, we’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a question and answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15-minute question and answer session. It’s interactive. It’s two days. It’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005, and I’m telling you, folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest-rated and most-reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at thrivetimeshow.com. Simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at thrivetimeshow.com you’re going to see thousands of people just like you who’ve been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket, or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it, and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s exactly how I met you, met Peter Taunton. I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Jerusalem, Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Jerusalem, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show in Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come. Who? You! You’re gonna come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re gonna give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners 34 Grammy Award winners 43 New York Times bestsellers I’ve represented a lot of major stars And I’ve worked with a lot of major companies And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine, I’ll see you in Tulsa. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever, and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Keosak University Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And we have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So, Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing, but I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. All right. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books and I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor and I owe a lot of that to you and I just want to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success and I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you thank you sir for changing my life. Well not only that Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changing a life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, Kings Point in New York, acta non verba, watch what a person does, not what they say. not what they say. Whoa!