1/ @Jamesclear's chat with @polina_marinova was filled with so many good ideas about creativity, building habits, and content creation.

Here are some key ideas which I found valuable.

2/ On building a 1 million email list and content creation:

• Make sure that your ideas are useful enough for people to trade their valuable time.

• It takes years of skills to learn how to find good and useful ideas and learning how to express them in an interesting way.
3/ How to find your voice:

• When you are starting out, there is no way around copying the best people in your field.

• But, don't do it from one person, do it with many. Over time, you will develop your own taste and style.

It took him over six months to find his own style.
4/ Stay on the bus.

• There is an idea called the Helsinki bus station theory which says that you can only find a unique voice if you stay long enough on your creative path.
6/ Writing under your own name.

By choosing to brand his blog as http://JamesClear.com , he was able to retain some flexibility on the topics he wrote about.

He said, "Writing under your name gives you a ton of flexibility...
7/ ...I can write about whatever I want, you know, like, and so that's been really nice as time has gone on because I didn't start out saying I'm definitely writing about habits"
8/ How he generates new ideas:

If you're consuming better things, if you have better inputs, you often just naturally get better outputs.

Spend a lot of time selecting what to read.

Read consistently and make it a part of your routine.
9/ On Balancing Consumption vs Production.

You have to maintain a balance by bouncing between consumption and creation mode.

James uses the analogy of stopping at a gas station to fill up on gas.

Writing is like kind of going on an adventure and driving somewhere.
10/ If you drive a car down the road and you run out of gas, then you're not going to get anywhere.

But the point of having a car is not to just sit at the gas station fill up all day.

Reading is like filling up the tank.
11/ And writing is like kind of going on an adventure and driving somewhere.

And you need both of those if you actually want to make the journey.
12/ On his Content Diet

• Automate the streams of information.

• Set it up once and reap the benefits.

• James has spent a lot of time (>100 hrs) curating his Twitter feed so that he is exposed to the best ideas.
13/ When you choose to follow people on social media, you are choosing your future thoughts.

So it is a wise thing to spend time to create some good filters.

He tries to sprinkle good sources of information around the environment so that he is never far from a good idea.
14/ It allows him to soak it up, build upon them and iterate.
15/ Difference between habits and addiction:

James says, "In the case of a habit if it stops serving you, you can stop doing it or change your behavior.

In the case of an addiction, it stops serving you, but you still feel the urge to do it."
16/ Why habits and identity are a two-way street.

•True behavior change is really identity change

• Once you start to fully believe in that identity (A runner, meditator, or a writer), the behavior follows.
17/ • You're not trying to be someone you're not, you're just acting in alignment with who you already see yourself to be.

• The way you act will also influence what you believe about yourself.
18/ He added, "And so the best lever you can pull is to allow the behavior to lead the way, to start with one small habit and let that provide evidence of being a certain type of person...
19/ Ultimately, the process of changing your habits is really the process of rewriting your story.

You know, it's learning to get you to believe something new about yourself. And once you believe that, you don't really have to convince yourself to do it anymore."
20/ Source:

You can follow @Deepuasok.
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