The Compound Effect - Darren Hardy
Small habits over time have a compounding effect. Your life is a product of your moment to moment choices. What makes the successful different is what they do when they get to a wall.
The Book in 3 Sentences
Small habits over time have a compounding effect. Your life is a product of your moment to moment choices. What makes the successful different is what they do when they get to a wall.
Impressions
This book is fast paced and directly to the point.
Darren uses a ton of life experience to show examples of compounding habits. From finding his wife, to how he proposed, and how he helped his coworkers.
Go for whole life success. You can't be unbalanced in where you work on yourself. Now, that doesn't mean do a ton of different things all at once. In fact, the best approach is to pick small goals and repeat them. Only after you have a good rhythm should you add more to what you are improving.
Darren uses a very interesting way to describe "garbage in, garbage out". In this book he talks about the news and how much it can cause depression and anxiety. He gives really solid solutions (RSS Feed) to filter the news to only what actually matters to him. Along that same path, he describes our brain and how the things we watch and listen to correlate. He has you picture a cup of water. This cup of water can either be filled with dirty water or clear water. Things like sitcoms, news, social media, music, etc... some things are even on his list that don't seem like dirty water. However, when you compare them to a book, a motivational speech, or watching a documentary, those are clean water.
Important note on this one. He doesn't say that you should never enjoy a funny sitcom or a romcom. What he states is that you have to see that as dirty water. Then, when you start to add clean water to your cup, it slowly removes the dirty in place for clean. This works both ways but you get the point.
It is an easy visual that I think most people can grasp.
Environment - Changing your environment can change your mood and your motivation.
He states that changing where you are physically, can also change where you are mentally. So, if you are sitting at your home office feeling in a slump, get up and go for a walk. While you can't "work" while walking, you certainly can think about your work as you walk. Then, as you come home and sit back at your desk, the state you were in can be replaced with the state you are now in after your walk.
How the book changed me
It's okay to start improving your life in one area. It's also okay to use that momentum to propel it in other areas.
Listening to self improvement books instead of the radio has helped me realize why my attitude and inspiration has stayed high. Good In, Good Out
My top quotes
Don’t take advice from someone you wouldn’t want to trade places with
It’s not what you do to get to the wall but what you do when you hit the wall
Common things give you common results
No idea is good if it doesn’t start with wow
Go for whole life success
Summary
With this book getting right into it, it was very quick and entertaining. He used personal experience to really solidify each point. There is a lot of good information here for anyone.
The Compound Effect was a great read and obviously I did not capture every nugget of information. Again, if it’s sparked your interest, please check it out.
Thanks for reading.