The Business Fixer Blog by Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer®

Atomic Habits Book Review on The Sales Podcast

Written by Wes Schaeffer | Apr 22, 2022

An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

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Sales Tips you'll learn today on The Sales Podcast...

  • In the same way we get a lot of power from splitting tiny atoms in the form of nuclear energy, you can unleash great power in your life with tiny changes
  • Your habits shape your identity
  • The four steps to building better habits
    • Make it obvious
    • Make it attractive
    • Make it easy
    • Make it satisfying

 

...the aggregation of marginal gains." ~Dave Brailsford, Performance Director of the British Cycling team
  • Massive success does not always require massive action
  • Over time, a tiny improvement can make a huge difference
  • Habit improvements compound like money compounds with interest
  • Be patient
  • Be disciplined
  • Don't slide back into your old routines and habits
  • On a flight from L.A. to NYC, if the plane is 3.5 degrees off course, it will miss NYC by 225 miles and land in D.C.
  • Success is the product of daily habits
  • Be more concerned with your trajectory than your results
  • Your outcomes are lagging indicators of your efforts, your habits
  • You get what you repeat
  • Good habits make time your ally
  • Positive and negative compounding habits
    • Productivity vs. stress
    • Knowledge vs. negative thinking
    • Relationships vs. rage
  • Breakthrough moments come after long, focused periods of invisible work
    • Bamboo
    • Cancer
    • Business wins
  • The Plateau of Latent Potential
    • Change can take years...before it happens all at once
    • Mastery requires patience
    • People call you an overnight success
    • The Valley of Disappointment
    • The results of our efforts are often delayed
  • All big things come from small beginnings
  • Breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak tree
  • Building a good habit is like nurturing a delicate rose one day at a time
  • Forget about goals, focus on systems
  • Goals define the results you want, systems are the steps you take to get those results
  • The only way to win is to get better every day
  • Bill Walsh, Super Bowl-winning coach of the 49s said, "The score takes care of itself."
  • Goals are good for setting direction, systems are best for making progress
  • Winners and losers have the same goals
  • Goal setting suffers from survivorship bias
  • Achieving a goal is only a momentary change
  • You must address the cause, not just the symptom
  • You need better systems
  • With the proper input, the output will take care of itself
  • Goals restrict your happiness
  • Goals create an "either-or" conflict
  • A systems-first mentality is the antidote
  • Goals are at odds with long-term progress
  • It's a yo-yo effect

 

  • We want to do more than win the game. Systems help us to continue playing the game.
  • You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems
  • Focus on 1% improvement
  • Make small, easy-to-implement changes
  • Why is it so easy to repeat bad habits and so hard to form good ones?
    • We try to change the wrong thing
    • We try to change in the wrong way
  • Three layers of behavior change
    • Outcome (Get)
    • Processes (Do)
    • Identity (Believe)
  • Most of the time, we work from the outside in
  • We need to work from the inside out, i.e., from the identity to the process to the outcome
  • Shift the focus from what you want to achieve to who you want to become
    • "Want a cigarette?" "No, I'm trying to quit."
    • "Want a cigarette?" "No, I'm not a smoker."
  • Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last
  • The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity
  • Take pride in yourself, and you'll be motivated to maintain the habits
  • True behavior change is identity change
  • Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are
    • Become a reader
    • Become a runner
    • Become a musician
  • Get out of your cognitive slumber
    • "I'm terrible with directions."
    • "I'm not a morning person."
    • "I'm horrible at remembering names."
    • You create your own reality of negativity
  • Identity conflict is your main barrier to positive change
  • You are self-sabotaging because of your negative identity
  • Progress requires unlearning
  • So how do you form your identity?
  • Your beliefs are learned and then conditioned through experience
  • In other words, your habits embody your identity
  • The word identity is derived from the Latin words essential, which means being, and identidem, which means repeatedly
  • So your identity is literally your "repeated beingness."
  • The more evidence you have for a belief, i.e., "I'm terrible with names," the more strongly you will believe it.
  • The process of building habits is the process of becoming yourself
  • Fortunately, meaningful change does not require radical change
  • If a change is meaningful, it is big!
  • To change who you are, change what you do.
  • Trust yourself. Learn to trust yourself by doing small habits repeatedly that bring about the small results you're seeking
  • You don't have to be perfect. You don't need a unanimous vote to become a new you.
  • Just give yourself new evidence of your new self to create your new identity
  • Who do you want to be?
  • What do you want to stand for?
  • What are your principles and values?
  • Who do you wish to become?
  • Maybe you have some big goals. Write those down, then work backward to figure out what you need to do to get there.
  • "I want to write a book (outcome-based). Who is the type of person who writes books? Someone who is consistent, disciplined, and reliable. Okay. I am a consistent, reliable, disciplined person (identity-based)."
  • This is a feedback loop. It's a two-way street
  • Focus on becoming the right type of person you need to be, and the outcome will take care of itself
  • Know who you want to be. Habits help you become that someone.

Sales Growth Tools Mentioned In The Sales Podcast