Episode · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett · 2025-12-11
Books mentioned on Discipline Expert: The Habit That Will Make Or Break Your Entire 2026! James Clear
Ready to make habits that stick in 2026? Atomic Habits author JAMES CLEAR reveals the science behind building lasting habits, breaking bad ones, and how 1% improvements transform your entire life!
Steven Bartlett discussed Atomic Habits by James Clear and The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. James Clear recommended The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey, and discussed Range by David J. Epstein.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Atomic Habits
Atomic Habits by James Clear is a widely acclaimed guide to habit formation and personal development that provides actionable strategies for building good behaviors and breaking bad ones through incremental changes.
Discussed“And there's some tools that we can go through. But one of the big takeaways from atomic habits is it's easier to build a new habit if you stack it on top of the habit you're already doing.”
Where to get it
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Range
Range by David J.
Discussed“David Epstein, who's the author of uh Range and Sports Genius, friend of mine, um he told me once, "Grit is fit."”
Where to get it
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The Blind Watchmaker
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins is a seminal science book arguing that the complex adaptations of living organisms are shaped by natural selection rather than conscious design.
Discussed“he makes a comparison to Richard Dawkins book called the I think it's a blind clock maker. Uh yeah the yeah blind watchman blind watchman.”
Where to get it
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The Inner Game of Tennis
The Inner Game of Tennis by W.
Recommended“I feel like a lot of this is there's a great book Inner Game of Tennis um that came out many many years ago. Might even be 50 at this point.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (10) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“It's making it easy to start in a way like probably 70% of what's in atomic habits are different strategies and different ideas and different tools that help you get started or makes starting easier.”
“Then why would I fall for it? Basically, but there's this guy, I mentioned him in Atomic Habits, his name is Mitch.”
“So I call them in the book in atomic habits I call them Q, craving, response and reward.”
“And I in atomic habits, I call this the cardinal rule of behavior change.”
“And then some stuff's just neutral, you know, like get dressed, you know, sure, whatever. Just put a put an equal sign.”
“But um yeah, so this book, the Atomic Habits Workbook, Simple Exercises for Building the Life You Want is now out. It came out this week.”
“So, um Atomic Habits is the culmination of basically 10 years of work and effort for me. Um, it's like I my objective was to write the best book that's ever been written on habits.”
“So, Atomic Habits is the full guide and the philosophy and the approach on how to do it. Then you finish this book and you sit there and you say, "All right, great. I have some habits I want to build. How do I do that?"”
“I'm ultimately chose the phrase atomic habits for three reasons. There's there's three meanings to the word atomic. The first is tiny or small like an atom which obviously I think your habit should be small and easy to do.”
“atomic habits was one of the most meaningful projects that I've worked on. It seems to have made a big difference for a lot of people or helped a lot of people.”