The Habits Behind 25 Million Copies Sold
- Vera Jo Bustos | Coach VJ
- Jul 7
- 4 min read
The Habits Behind 25 Million Copies Sold
What does the person who wrote one of the best-selling books of the last decade actually do differently?
A few weeks ago, I found out first-hand.
I sat in a room with James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, a book that's sold over 25 million copies, been translated into more than 60 languages, and spent nearly five years on the New York Times bestseller list.
And I listened to him answer that question himself.
By most measures, what he has accomplished is the epitome of success.
He gave us three habits. Simple enough to fit on an index card, yet rare enough that almost no one actually does all three.
Mental Lesson: The Three Habits of Excellence
Habit 1: Reflection
As a high performer, I can almost guarantee you're working hard. Your hard work is what's gotten you to where you are, so when something isn't working, that's often the first lever you'll reach for; more work. The problem is that you can't 10x your effort, because there's only so much hustle a day can hold.
What you can do is 10x your aim.
The only way to know if your hard work is pointed at the right target is an honest, regular, audit. Three questions, asked on repeat:
Start — what do you need to begin that you've been avoiding?
Stop — what's eating your time and energy without paying you back?
Continue — what's working well enough that it deserves more of you?
The courage to start, the discernment to stop, the discipline to continue.
Habit 2: Improve Consumption
Every thought you have is downstream of what you feed your mind. If your inputs are shallow, rushed, or low-quality, your outputs will be too—no matter how hard you work on the output itself.
Know exactly what you're feeding yourself.
If I opened your social media app of choice right now, what would your algorithm show me? Inputs that make you sharper, or inputs that just pass the time? Entertainment has its place, of course. So does deliberate, high-quality input, and most people never separate the two long enough to notice which one is running the show. The quality of your output has a ceiling, and that ceiling is set by what you let in.
James Clear gave an example that stuck with me. Before writing his book, he pulled the top 100 New York Times most-read articles and studied their first sentences—cadence, structure, word choice—and logged all of it in a spreadsheet. Then he went back through his own manuscript and workshopped the first sentence of every chapter against what he'd learned.
Talk about consumption with a purpose! A deliberate study of the best examples of the thing you're trying to do, broken down until you understand why they work, and then applied, specifically and deliberately, until your own work measures up.
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant recently posted something that's basically a callback to this exact habit: "A telltale sign of an ignorant leader is failing to read books—fiction builds empathy and imagination, nonfiction boosts concentration and critical thinking, and not reading fuels mental stagnation. Leaders who say they 'don't have time to read' are leaders who don't make time to learn."
I'm not telling you to pick up a book tonight. But if two of the sharpest thinkers of our time are independently pointing at the same thing, they might be onto something.
Habit 3: Creativity
When was the last time one of your best ideas came to you sitting at your desk? Conversely, how often have you had "lightbulb moments" when you were out on a walk, taking a shower, or on a drive? The best ideas tend to show up anywhere your body is moving and your mind is allowed to wander off-task.
Taking the time to move your body outside of the confines of your work space is what makes room for the thinking that staring at a screen can't produce.
There's a parallel idea worth pairing with this: cognitive depth comes from eliminating distractions and protecting dedicated, uninterrupted blocks of focus time. What I've found is that combining the two—a walk outside, followed by a real block of focus time—is one of the most reliable ways to ignite creativity.
Strategic Pause (Walk) + Focus Time (Deep Work)
Walk then work. Give your brain a moment to breathe without overstimulation from a screen.
Next Rep: Purpose - Recalculate the Map
Run the audit. Sit down—actually sit down, not just think about it in the car—and write out your Start, Stop, and Continue.
Then look at your inputs. What's the last thing you read, watched, or listened to that actually made you think differently?
Finally, take a walk today. Around the block, around your office building. It doesn't need to be miles long. But I do challenge you to make it happen today, with no phone, no podcast, no agenda. Just movement and quiet. See what shows up.
Final Buzzer
The bonus James Clear left us with was this: 10 years and 1 hour.
"Do not let a day pass without work toward your 10 year quest."
The 10 years is the quest: the long thing you're building, whatever it is. The 1 hour is what you give it today. If you don't know where you're going, how will you ever know when you've arrived?
What's your 10-year quest?
And what's the one hour you're going to give it today?
Challenging you head-on and always in your corner,
— Coach VJ
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