The Compound Effect (10th Anniversary Edition): Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success

by Darren Hardy

“What’s simple to do is also simple not to do.”

The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not.

Keeping a money log for thirty days straight cemented a new awareness in me and created a completely new set of choices and disciplines surrounding spending.

Tracking is my go-to transformation model for everything that ails me.

Over the years I’ve tracked what I eat and drink, how much I exercise, how much time I spend improving a skill, my number of sales calls, even the improvement of my relationships with family, friends, or my spouse.

In buying this book, you’re basically paying me for my opinion, my guidance. This is where I’m going to become a hard-ass and insist you track your behaviors for at least one whole week. This book isn’t designed to entertain you. It is designed to h...

Tracking is the way to get it back on track.

All winners are trackers. Right now I want you to track your life with the same intention: to bring your goals within sight.

Tracking is a simple exercise. It works because it brings moment-to-moment awareness to the actions you take in the area of your life you want to improve. You’ll be surprised at what you will observe about your behavior. You cannot manage or improve something until you measure it.

Professional athletes know how to adjust their performances based on what they’ve tracked. They pay attention to what they record and make changes accordingly, because they know when their stats improve, they win more games and earn more in endorsement deals.

Just track one habit for one week. Pick the habit that has the greatest control over you. That’s where you’ll start.

merely writing these things down sounds simple—and it is—BUT ONLY WHEN YOU DO IT.

What will the tracking look like? It will be thorough, as in organized. And relentless, as in constant. Each day you’ll start with the date at the top of a fresh page, and start keeping track.

What happens in three weeks? You move from the shock that follows the first week to the happy surprise of seeing how merely becoming conscious of your actions begins to shape them. You’ll find yourself asking, “Do I really want that candy bar?

Every time you spend a buck today, it’s like taking five dollars out of your future pocket.

Make the correct choice every day, every week for many years, and you can quickly see how you can become financially abundant.

Once you start tracking your life, your attention will be focused on the smallest things you’re doing right, as well as the smallest things you’re doing wrong.

That’s the power of little things adding up. It’s not the big things that add up in the end. It’s the hundreds, thousands, or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary.