458: Over 10MM Copies Sold: My Summary of Atomic Habits by James Clear

Just over four years ago, I interviewed my friend James Clear about his, then, new book Atomic Habits. Little did I know then that this book would rock the publishing world and become a worldwide bestseller.

Jeff Brown

I call it a modern-day 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, or How to Win Friends and Influence People, or Think and Grow Rich.

I had the chance to exchange messages with James over the weekend, and took the opportunity to congratulate him on his incredible milestone (I’d seen a recent post of his on Facebook about it). That milestone is 10MM+ copies sold.

In his post, James was quick to credit everyone else. More than anything he did, James said, it was simple, consistent, and passionate word-of-mouth by us, his readers, that was responsible for his book’s success.

Our exchange inspired me to honor this incredible milestone by revisiting the book in this episode.

This go ’round, I’m sharing an audio summary of Atomic Habits, the audio version of the same written summary I share with my members inside the Read to Lead Community.

By the way, if you’d like to receive a new written book summary every week, jump on over to my Community page and sign up for free. You get access to the Read to Lead Community, the chance to interact with other readers, and a new book summary each and every week.

And, if you’d like to check out my audio summary of Atomic Habits, just hit the play button below.

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In today’s episode, I feature Atomic Habits. including:

  • The importance of focusing on small, incremental changes, or “atomic habits,” to achieve long-term goals.
  • The role of identity in shaping habits and how adopting the identity of the person you want to become can influence your behavior.
  • The influence of environment on habits and the importance of designing a supportive environment that makes it easy to develop good habits and difficult to fall back into bad ones.

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James in Action

My Interview with James Clear in 2018

When Atomic Habits first released, James and I chatted about it in Episode 242. Who knew then where this book was headed?

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