Good Stuff! Atomic Habits, Let Me Finish, a Political Taxonomy

Habits are one of the most powerful forces in our lives. If we could consciously harness them, there’s no telling what we can do.

The problem is that we keep going about it all wrong.

We keep trying to motivate ourselves into behavior change. Sometimes motivation works, but motivation is fickle. And more often than not it leaves us hanging just when we need it the most.

So are we doomed?

No.

Because motivation is just one of four parts of creating habits. And it’s not even the most important one.

What are these other parts? How do you harness them?

Well, that’s the subject of Atomic Habits by James Clear.

And one of the neat things is that Clear reveals that tiny changes can lead to remarkable results. No Herculean efforts. No getting yourself amped up. Something else that’s much easier to do and much more effective.

The book’s been a New York Times bestseller.

An Amazon bestseller.

It’s been on the USA Today bestseller list for twenty-two weeks.

If you want to build some good habits, if you want to stop some bad ones, if you want to make any behavior in yourself or others more likely, let me recommend you find out what Clear has discovered in his research and give it a try. I think you’ll be happy you did.

*

Chris Christie, the two-term governor of New Jersey, is an interesting figure.

He was a federal prosecutor who cleaned up a ton of government corruption in New Jersey.

And then he became governor. He might have come and gone like hundreds of governors, but a video went viral, showing his direct, in-your-face politics.

Many begged him to run in the 2012 presidential election, including a whole bunch of billionaires.

He turned them down. Said he wasn’t ready. You’ve got to admire someone who does that.

Then he did run in the 2016 election, but failed to get the attention and votes he might have because Trump was sucking all the media out of the room. And that might have ended it. But Christie dropped out of the race and was the first to endorse Trump, who’d been a long-time friend.

Trump almost picked him for vice president. The choice ended up being between Christie and Pence. Ultimately, he chose Pence and asked Christie to create the transition plan.

Christie spent six months with a whole team of people creating that plan. It was a plan that would have helped Trump avoid so many disasters in appointments and policy during his first two hundred days. But when it was finished, the Trump team decided to throw it away.

Why? What was going on?

Christie is unlike Trump in many, many ways. Why would he support him?

Christie reveals all and much more in Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics.

In the book he sets the record straight about his tenure as a corruption-fighting prosecutor and a Republican running a Democratic state, as well as what really happened on the 2016 campaign trail and inside Trump Tower. It’s a fascinating book that gives insights into the Trump team, Trump himself, and Christ Christie who I think would have made a terrific president.

If you’re interested in politics, larger-than-life figures, and a view from the inside, I think you’ll love this book.

*

In less than three minutes, you can amaze your friends, cut through a lot of political blather, and clearly assess what’s being proposed over the next eighteen months as the presidential campaign heats up.

How?

By understanding the simple taxonomy below. 

Every day folks in the media make accusations and claims about socialism, Sweden, Venezuela, capitalism, and the United States. Unfortunately, a lot of the time it’s clear they’re a bit muddled. So let’s cut through the confusion.  

Whether you’re an independent, Democrat, or Republican, you’ll want to know these three terms.

SOCIALISM

The state owns and directs huge portions of the economy. The government in these schemes is the old-fashioned Soviet, Mao, and Nazi style dictatorships.

These types of socialists did so much good in the 20th century. No other scheme was better at piling up dead bodies. Millions and millions of them.  

An interesting tidbit. Did you know that “Nazi” is the abbreviation in German of “Nationalsozialistische”? That word means “National Socialist”. It comes from the name of Hitler’s political party, the “National Socialist German Workers’ Party” or “Nationalsozialistische der Deutsche Arbeiters Partei.”

Nobody running for president today is advocating for this type of government.

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM

The state owns and directs huge portions of the economy. The government in these schemes is supposed to be democratic, which means you should be able to vote the bums out and put other bums in. Venezuela supposedly uses this model, although some wonder if it is a true democracy or a sham one.

For those who like socialism, this is supposed to be the good way of doing it as opposed to the bad way of the old fashioned authoritarians. I will let you determine whether the “good” scheme actually leads to any better economic outcomes than the “bad” one.

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

You rely on lots and lots and lots of capitalism (private ownership and direction of companies in a free market) to fund government social programs. The funding is done via high tax rates. You have elections and can vote the bums out and put other bums in. This is Sweden.

A lot of people in the current presidential race are advocating for this type of government. Although, if they say that any system that allows billionaires to exist is immoral, you will need to scrutinize that candidate carefully because Sweden’s system allows billionaires. It may be that candidate actually wants some form of democratic socialism.

One last point. If you think about it, the United States and Sweden are similar types of governments. They’re on the same continuum. The difference is that the United States is simply much less of a welfare state than Sweden is.

There you have it. Three terms you are going to hear a million times over the next eighteen months.

Amaze your friends by actually knowing what they mean.

Be proud of your knowledge.

And use it to carefully consider the candidates.