More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Darren Hardy
Started reading
October 18, 2023
No matter what you learn, what strategy or tactic you employ, success comes as the result of the Compound Effect.
You see, success isn’t about doing five thousand different things well. Success is doing the right things well five thousand times over.
Darren’s life has been a personal laboratory of study and research on the topic of success.
Stray off course by just two millimeters, and your trajectory changes; what seemed like a tiny, inconsequential decision then can become a mammoth miscalculation now.
You have heard you can achieve anything you set your mind to, right? Well, only if you know how.
Before we dig in, I have one warning: earning success is hard. The process is laborious, tedious, and sometimes even boring. Becoming wealthy, influential, and world-class in your field is slow and arduous.
The bottom line is that you already know what you need to succeed. You don’t need to learn anything more. If all we needed was more information, everyone with an internet connection would live in a mansion, have abs of steel, and be blissfully happy. You do not need new information—you need a new plan of action. It is time to create new behaviors and habits oriented away from sabotage and toward success. It’s that simple.
One of Dad’s core philosophies was, “It doesn’t matter how smart you are or aren’t, you need to make up in hard work what you lack in experience, skill, intelligence, or innate ability. If your competitor is smarter, more talented, or experienced, you simply need to work three or four times as hard. You can still beat them!”
No excuses. If you aren’t good at something, work harder, work smarter.
“Be the guy who says ‘no.’ It’s no great achievement to go along with the crowd. Be the unusual guy, ‘Be The Exception’”
I’m grateful for the success skills I learned from my dad, and my other mentors along the way.
The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices.
Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE
consistency over time is so important.
Scott’s invested almost one thousand hours reading good books and listening to self-improvement audios. By putting his newly gained knowledge into practice, he’s earned a promotion and a raise.
The reality is that even one small change can have a significant impact that causes an unexpected and unintended ripple effect.
The crankiness and sleep deprivation begin to impact his work performance.
As his own body starts to feel flabby, he feels less self-confident, less attractive and becomes less romantic.
The thought doesn’t occur to him that if he had read the personal-development books his buddy Scott read, he might have learned about ways to change negative habits.
The most challenging aspect of the Compound Effect is that we have to keep working away for a while, consistently and efficiently, before we begin to see the payoff.
The secret to success was then, and is now, hard work, discipline, and good habits.
The truth is, complacency has impacted all great empires, including, but not limited to, the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. Why? Because nothing fails like success.
Having experienced extended periods of prosperity, health, and wealth, we become complacent. We stop doing what we did to get us there.
If we want to succeed, we need to recover our grandparents’ work ethic.
Real and lasting success requires work—and lots of it!
I want you to know in your bones that your only path to success is through a continuum of mundane, unsexy, unexciting, and sometimes difficult daily disciplines compounded over time.
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. Think about it.
Everything in your life exists because you first made a choice about something.
In essence, you make your choices and then your choices make you.
Our choices are often shaped by our culture and upbringing.
Nobody intends to become obese, go through bankruptcy, or get a divorce, but often (if not always) those consequences are the result of a series of small, poor choices.
We’re particularly gifted in the finger-pointing department when it comes to our romantic relationships—you know, where the other person is the one who needs to change.
All that journaling forced me to focus on my wife’s positive aspects. I was consciously looking for all the things she was doing “right.”
Choosing to look for and focus on his wife’s positive qualities changed his view of her, which changed how he interacted with her. As a result, she made different choices about the way she responded to him.
We are all self-made men and women, but only the successful take credit for it.
The instructor turned to the easel and wrote 100/0 on the paper in big black letters. “You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return,” he said. “Only when you’re willing to take 100 percent responsibility for making the relationship work will it work. Otherwise, a relationship left to chance will always be vulnerable to disaster.”
Not getting along with your unreasonable teen? There are a countless fantastic books and classes to help you learn how to deal.
I had the unlimited power to control my destiny.
The only difference between becoming fabulously rich, happy, and healthy versus ending up broke, depressed, and unhealthy are the choices you make.
Everyone has the opportunity to be “lucky,” because beyond having the basics of health and sustenance, luck simply comes down to a series of choices.
The (Complete) Formula for Getting Lucky: Preparation (personal growth) + Attitude (belief/mindset) + Opportunity (a good thing coming your way) + Action (doing something about it) = Luck
It’s simply a matter of seeing situations, conversations, and circumstances as fortuitous. You cannot see what you don’t look for, and you cannot look for what you don’t believe in.
Attitude
So no more whining about the cards you were dealt, the great defeats you suffered, or any other circumstances. Countless people have more disadvantages and greater obstacles than you, and yet they’re wealthier and more fulfilled.
No matter what has happened to you, take complete responsibility for it—good or bad, victory or defeat. Own it.
“The day you graduate from childhood to adulthood is the day you take full responsibility for your life.”
The first step toward change is awareness. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be, you have to start by becoming aware of the choices that lead you away from your desired destination. Become very conscious of every choice you make today so you can begin to make smarter choices moving forward.
To help you become aware of your choices, I want you to track every action that relates to the area of your life you want to improve.
If you’ve decided you want to lose weight, you’re going to track everything you put into your mouth.
Simply carry around a small notebook, something you’ll keep in your pocket or purse at all times, and a writing instrument. You’re going to write it all down. Every day. Without fail. No excuses, no exceptions.
Track every action
But tracking my progress and missteps is the one of the reasons I’ve accumulated the success I have. The process forces you to be conscious of your decisions.
