The Compound Effect: Jump start Your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy, publisher and editorial director of SUCCESS magazine has not only written one of the best sellers of New York Times and Wall Street Journal but also has created a plain-spoken practical guide to creating clear goals and undertaking the necessary to attain powerful results. Being in the self-improvement industry for quite some time, his book sums up on practical lessons on exactly how you can change your life.
It is common for people to try to quickly fix or take one major step and expect to overcome all their problems and challenges. In his book, Darren Hardy explains that the key to success in any aspect of your life is controlling and making use of the power of the Compound Effect, which is the effect of small, consistent choices and the daily disciplines that compound over time, ultimately leading us to success – or to disaster, being subject to our choices.
In the summary of The Compound Effect below, you will be able to pick up on what the book is all about and what lessons you can draw from it.
Driving the Compound Effect into Action
The opening chapter of the book is focused on the power of the compound effect. As you may be familiar with this from finance, compound interest leads to astoundingly huge returns where a penny doubling each day for 30 days ends up being worth over $15million. Darren discusses the concept called “The Magic Penny” where you are given a choice between taking a million dollars in hand or waiting 30 days as a penny double each day.
Likewise, in our private life, small changes upheld consistently over a while leads to surprisingly drastic results. Consuming 120 fewer calories each day for a year would result in losing 10 – 12 pounds. Another great example would be taking out 30 minutes each day to read, which over a year can lead to drastic self-improvement.
Remarkably, changes in one area of your life can compound with other areas, what Darren Hardy calls “the Ripple Effect.” For instance, consuming a little more healthy food each day may lead to feeling more energetic, which encourages a little more exercise, which improves personal relationships and mood. One small alteration can lead to a lot of other benefits, which together form an overall drastic personal change.
The notion of small changes compounding over some time can be weighed against the big and sudden changes. Extending on the exercise example, people usually announce a big goal and start with extreme practices like going to the gym daily which often is unsustainable, like missing a few sessions, getting discouraged, and stopping. In comparison, small changes build consistency and momentum forming new habits that can be maintained for years.
The principle is simple, however simple certainly doesn’t mean easy. The steps you will take will be insignificant but not the reward.
“Small, Smart Choices+ Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE.”
Each chapter in this book provides an insight into the fundamental principles of the Compound Effect that will assist you to generate renewed habits and behaviors and propel toward success.
You Make Your Choices, and Your Choices Make You!
When you’re mindful of your choices, you will be able to make a sequence of small good decisions that lead to the habits and behaviors that support a successful and happy life.
“Our choices can be our best friend or our worst enemy. They can deliver us to our goals or send us orbiting into a galaxy far, far away.”
Outlined below are guidelines from the book when it comes to making good choices:
- Gratitude – concentrating on things you are thankful for builds a Compound Effect of positivity.
- 100% Responsibility – taking 100% responsibility for yourself enables you to get a grip on limitless power to control your destiny.
- Grab advantage of Luck – a mix of preparation, attitude, opportunity, and action is the sort of luck that can be connected with success.
- Tracking – by tracking your behavior you can get control over your choices.
It’s never too late to practise the power of the Compound Effect, starting now is the key, irrespective of your age.
Habits and Goals
“We are what we repeatedly do.”
Habits ultimately become who you are. The principle to success is building several good habits that you will follow on a daily basis.
You = Choice (decision) + Behaviour (Action) + Habit (repeated Action) + Compounded = Goals
This chapter provides strategies to recognize your habits through tracking, getting rid of bad habits, and crafting positive ones.
Finding Momentum
Momentum, Darren Hardy refers to this as the “Big Mo” in the book, is an influential force for success. Momentum does not arise effortlessly, but as soon as it kicks in, your capability to achieve success compounds rapidly.
This chapter discusses how you can build momentum for your life to take off. When your habits become routine, you get into a rhythm which makes your routine feel natural and easy, and the momentum gets a chance to work.
Understand What’s Influencing You
We are all accountable for the choices we make, but it’s essential to understand that those choices are influenced by powerful external factors. Three powerful influences that affect you as discussed by Darren Hardy are; input (what you feed your mind), associations (who we associate with) and environment (your surroundings). Actionable steps are discussed on how you can alter the three influences to your advantage.
Acceleration – Breaking Through to Greater Success
In order to attain success, there will be times when you will face hardships and you will need to find courage and stamina to push through. Darren Hardy discusses the notion of acceleration in detail and highlights it is about going above and beyond.
What I Like About This Book
The Compound Effect is a comprehensive guide to achieving success with practical content that is relatable to many people and applicable in all facets of our lives. Above all, I appreciate how this book does not overload you with ideas and leave you hanging on what to do next, the author concludes each chapter with a checklist of questions and activities that put the significant learnings into action straightaway. Together with this, there are also extra material references through the book that directs readers to unrestricted online resources. What also strikes as noteworthy, this book is the result of Darren Hardy’s personal experiences and exploration. He has applied the principles mentioned in this book to his life and the great success that his achieved is evident today.
Why You Should Read the Book
This is a life changing book for anybody that is interested in long term success. The small choices you make irrespective of it being good or bad, it compounds over a period of time and affects your life significantly.
“doing a little extra every day and you will end up with alot over years”.
The Compound Effect is a detailed self-help guide providing the tools to get you on track and take control of your life. Not only the steps mentioned are highly actionable, but this book is what pulls you out of the instant fulfillment circle that is taking over many people today.