# daily blog-identity trumps process ###### tags: `blog` `daily blog` `identity` If you can cultivate the identity of someone who is or does **insert thing**, this trumps the system of just doing it at certain cues. This is what James Clear gets at in Atomic Habits. Be someone who takes accountability for their fitness, who has vision, who thinks deeply about solutions to problems - and your brain will start thinking the thoughts of a person like that and soon your limbs will be impatient to do the things a person like that does. If you need a push in the right direction, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with - whilst it helps if they're living, breathing friends, it's not a pre-requisite. Napoleon Hill used to have as mental advisors a panel of the "eminent dead". Choose people you admire; living or not and imagine being in their presence. How would you elevate yourself to be worthy of them? My list includes: Napoleon, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Scipio Africanus, Dwight Eisenhower, Julius Caesar, Yang Wen-li, Leto Atreides II, Zhang Behai.