Darren Hardy is a life coach who also authored the Success Magazine for 10 years. He has been in the self-improvement industry for long, and in his book The Compound Effect, he sums up lessons on how you can really change your life.
Most people want to change aspects of their life by making one-time drastic changes that cannot work. In his book, Darren Hardy sums up success as the result of small, consistent choices and daily disciplines, compounded over time. Suffice it to say that this book has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street and USA Today as a best seller.
In this Compound Effect summary, you will learn more about what the book is all about and some of the lessons you can draw from it.
The Compound Effect in Action – the first chapter of the book sets straight the compound effect. In this chapter, Darren discusses the key to success. He states that to make it you must have consistency and you must put in the hard work to make up for what you lack in intelligence, experience, skill and innate ability.
According to Darren commercial marketing has created problems that you do not have and sells you instant fixes to those problems. You have been programmed to believe in instant fixes and instant gratification which is not a recipe for success.
To be successful, you must have consistency in what you do. Have your goals outlined and make daily choices to help you achieve those goals in the long run. That is how you will see the compound effect take action in your life. The steps you take are not significant, but the rewards will be. To sum it all up “Small, Smart Choices+ Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE.”
Choices – “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.” This chapter is all about the simple choices we make in life.
Everything you have in your life is as a result of a choice you made. If you do not make a decision, you have also chosen to receive just anything that comes your way. If you make bad choices, you will be forced to make harder choices later on to correct the mistakes.
The simple choices that you make today whether good or bad will have a compound effect in your life. It is far easy to notice huge mistakes that will affect your life significantly, but it is the small things in life that will bite you later on.
It is therefore imperative to be cautious and conscious of the little choices you make daily. To get the best out of your life, you have to make conscious and empowering choices. You must own and take responsibility for your life 100% in everything that you do.
Habits – “We are what we repeatedly do.” Habits eventually become who you are. Many people are doing things because they are a habit, but they do not know where they are headed. The formula to success is building many good habits that you will follow daily.
When you develop good habits, they will direct you to become more knowledgeable, more skilled, better prepared and more competent to achieve your already set out goals. This will compound and bring you success eventually.
You => Choice (decision) + Behaviour (Action) + Habit (repeated Action) + Compounded = Goals
You will learn tactics on how to identify your habits by tracking, eliminating them and developing new helpful tactics.
Momentum – to achieve success, you will need to find your momentum. This means that you have to get things going. The first step is always the hardest, but after taking it and finding your momentum, nothing will stop you. Momentum is what catapults you on your way to success.
This chapter discusses how you can build momentum so your life can take off. When you find your rhythm and enter your groove, things will flow much easier for you.
Influences – most of the choices people make are influenced by some powerful external forces. The three strong influences that affect you strongly as discussed by Darren are; input (what you feed your mind), associations (the people you spend time with) and environment (the surroundings).
In this chapter you will learn actionable steps as to how you can change what you feed your mind with, change your friends and use your surroundings to your advantage.
Acceleration – to achieve success you need to find the courage to endure hardships and strength to move on when things get tough, and you really want to give up. This is what acceleration is all about. When there are challenges, you will have to search inside yourself for the self-definition and stamina to pursue your journey to success.
Darren also discusses the concept of multiplying your results by adding in just a little more effort to what you are already doing. It means you need to go above and beyond and you will see things moving much faster. You will meet your goals and surpass them when you do a little bit more than you had planned out on your program. You should do more than is expected, do the unexpected and do better than expected.
What I Like About The Book
I like that this book is highly relatable with many people. The author has written it in a simple way so that the ideas easily get through. The Compound Effect is a formula on how you can change your life one simple step at a time. I especially like that the book doesn’t require you to make drastic changes or take any huge steps that might appear unattainable.
It is all about the simple things that you can do daily to impact your life in a significant way later on. I like that the book doesn’t promise instant success. You have to put in the work, and eventually, the compound effect will take over. When it does, you will look back and know that it was those simple changes that you made in your life.
Why You Should Read The Book
The small choices you make whether good or bad will compound over time and affect your life in a significant way later on. This book is the self-help guide that gives you the tools you need to get your life back on track one simple change at a time.
This book is highly actionable, and you can put in the ideas and lessons to practice right away in your life. This book will get you out of the instant gratification sphere that is ruining many people today.
