readable manuscript. And I am thankful to Anne Barngrover for her
ability to add a little class and poetic style to my writing.
I’d like to thank the many people who read early versions of the
manuscript, including Bruce Ammons, Darcey Ansell, Tim Ballard,
Vishal Bhardwaj, Charlotte Blank, Jerome Burt, Sim Campbell, Al
Carlos, Nicky Case, Julie Chang, Jason Collins, Debra Croy, Roger
Dooley, Tiago Forte, Matt Gartland, Andrew Gierer, Randy Giffen, Jon
Giganti, Adam Gilbert, Stephan Guyenet, Jeremy Hendon, Jane
Horvath, Joakim Jansson, Josh Kaufman, Anne Kavanagh, Chris
Klaus, Zeke Lopez, Cady Macon, Cyd Madsen, Kiera McGrath, Amy
Mitchell, Anna Moise, Stacey Morris, Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Taylor
Pearson, Max Shank, Trey Shelton, Jason Shen, Jacob Zangelidis, and
Ari Zelmanow. The book benefited greatly from your feedback.
To the team at Avery and Penguin Random House who made this
book a reality, thank you. I owe a debt of special thanks to my
publisher, Megan Newman, for her endless patience as I continually
pushed back deadlines. She gave me the space I needed to create a
book I was proud of and championed my ideas at every step. To Nina,
for her ability to transform my writing while still retaining my original
message. To Lindsay, Farin, Casey, and the rest of the PRH team for
spreading the message of this book to more people than I could ever
reach on my own. To Pete Garceau, for designing a beautiful cover for
this book.
And to my agent, Lisa DiMona, for her guidance and insight at every
step of the publishing process.
To the many friends and family members who asked “How’s the
book going?” and offered a word of encouragement when I inevitably
replied “Slowly”—thank you. Every author faces a few dark moments
when writing a book, and one kind word can be enough to get you to
show up again the next day.
I am sure there are people I have forgotten, but I keep an updated
list of anyone who has influenced my thinking in meaningful ways at
jamesclear.com/thanks.
And finally, to you. Life is short and you have shared some of your
precious time with me by reading this book. Thank you.
—May 2018