James Clear: Success means time autonomy and contributing to humanity's knowledge
James Clear · How to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones | James Clear · Jan 1, 2026 · at 2:14:51
Author James Clear answers Shane Parrish's closing question about his personal definition of success.
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“I think the short version is success is having power over my days. That's, you know, if I have the freedom and the ability to choose how I'm spending my days, that sounds great. What more could you want than that? You know, that means I would get to choose to spend time with my kids. If I have kids before I had kids, it meant I could choose to travel or to work on projects that I wanted. You know, after my kids are grown, it'll mean that I can choose to dive into new things like, you know, what more could you want than that than to have control over your time? So that's, I think to have power over my days is the version for me internally. And then to contribute my little bit to the world around me is the external focus. What is, what does success look like? On the outside, I think it's adding your little bit to the pile of knowledge for humanity.”
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