Punchy Points from The Compound Effect By Darren Hardy
- Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE
- You’re not taking 100 percent personal responsibility, if you’re blaming anything outside yourself.
- Attention feeds the habit. When we give our attention to a habit, we activate the brain groove, releasing the thoughts, desires, and actions related to that habit.
- Practice “vice fast” Once in every 3 months pick one vice and abstain for 30 days to prove you’re in charge.
- Be happy when something is hard, because many people won’t do what it takes, it will be easier for you to step in front of the pack and take the lead.
- Some of our best intentions fail because we don’t have a system of execution.
- To reach new goals and develop new habits, it’s necessary to create new routines to support your objectives.
- Set weekly, monthly, and yearly goals to do something that you wouldn’t normally do.
- Consistency creates momentum, and inconsistency can kill that momentum that you have created.
- Take a look at your relationships and make sure you’re not spending three hours with a three-minute person.
- Incomplete tasks keep calling you back to the past to take care of them. So think about what you can complete today.
- It takes very little extra to be EXTRAordinary.
Dig Deeper
The Compound Effect-Book Summary
The compound effect in action
No matter what you learn, what strategy or tactic you employ, success comes as the result of the Compound Effect.
No excuses. If you aren’t good at something, work harder, work smarter. Not good at dribbling with your left hand? Tie your right hand behind your back and dribble three hours a day.
The compound Effects is all about small, seemingly insignificant steps completed consistently over time will create a radical difference.
There is no magic bullet, secret formula, or quick fix.
You don’t make $200,000 a year spending two hours a day on the Internet, lose 30 pounds in a week, rub 20 years off your face with a cream, fix your love life with a pill, or find lasting success with any other scheme that is too good to be true. We’ve lost sight of the simple but profound fundamentals of what it takes to be successful.
Jim Rohn, said,
“There are no new fundamentals. Truth is not new; it’s old. You’ve got to be a little suspicious of the guy who says, ‘Come over here, I want to show you my manufactured antiques!’ No, you can’t manufacture antiques.”
“Be the guy who says ‘no.’ It’s no great achievement to go along with the crowd. Be the unusual guy, the extraordinary guy.”
“You already know all that 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.”
CHOICES
Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE
You have to be willing to give 100 percent with zero expectation of receiving anything in return,” “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.
You’re not taking 100 percent personal responsibility, if you’re blaming anything outside yourself.
The difference between becoming fabulously rich, happy, and healthy, or broke, depressed, and unhealthy, is the choices you make throughout life. Nothing else will make the difference. It has nothing to do with LUCK.
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
Be aware by picturing where you want to be and be very conscious of every choice you make. Track every action that relates to the area of your life you want to improve.
The compound effect is about long-term thinking, is you looking at an Item that is costing $50 dollars, and thinking what will be the worth of the same $50 invested for 20 years.
The difference between the No. 1 ranked golfer and the No. 10 golfer is an average of only 1.9 strokes, but the difference in prize money is five times (over $10 million versus $2 million)!
Table of Contents
- The compound effect in action
- CHOICES
- HABITS
- Change Is Hard: Yippee!
- MOMENTUM
- Shake It Up
- INFLUENCES
- Dear Complainers
- ACCELERATION
HABITS
Core Motivation
The access point to your why-power is through your core values, which define both who you are and what you stand for. Your core values are your internal compass, your guiding beacon, your personal GPS. They act as the filter through which you run all of life’s demands, requests, and temptations, making sure they’re leading you toward your intended destination. Getting your core values defined and properly calibrated is one of the most important steps in redirecting your life toward your grandest vision.
Love is a powerfully motivating force. But so is hate. Sometimes identifying an enemy lights your fire.
“Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon… must inevitably come to pass!”
Be Patient
When it comes to breaking old bad habits and starting new ones, remember to be patient with yourself. If you’ve spent twenty, thirty, or forty years or more repeating the behaviors you’re now trying to change, you’ve got to expect it’s going to take time and effort before you see lasting results. Science shows that patterns of thoughts and actions repeated many times create what’s called a neuro-signature or a “brain groove,” or a series of interconnected neurons that carry the thought patterns of a particular habit. Attention feeds the habit. When we give our attention to a habit, we activate the brain groove, releasing the thoughts, desires, and actions related to that habit. Luckily, our brains are malleable. If we stop giving attention to the bad habits, those grooves weaken.
When we form new habits, we drive new grooves deeper with each repetition, eventually overpowering the previous ones.
When your actions conflict with your values, you’ll end up unhappy, frustrated, and despondent.
In fact, psychologists tell us that nothing creates more stress than when our actions and behaviors aren’t congruent with our values.
Decision-making is also easier when you are certain of your core values.
“Vice Fast”
The compound Effect Author, Darren Hardy once in a while he goes for what he call “vice fast” His vices are coffee, ice cream, wine, and movies. Once in every 3 months he pick one vice and abstain for 30 days to prove his in charge.
Change Is Hard: Yippee!
There is a one thing that 99 percent of “failures” and “successful” folks have in common—they all hate doing the same things. The difference is successful people do them anyway. Change is hard.
That’s why people don’t transform their bad habits, and why so many people end up unhappy and unhealthy.
Ordinary is easy. Extra-ordinary is what will separate you from the crowd.
Be happy when something is hard, because many people won’t do what it takes, it will be easier for you to step in front of the pack and take the lead.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said so eloquently:
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge.”
When you press on despite difficulty, tedium, and hardship, that’s when you earn your improvement and gain strides on the competition.
If it’s hard, awkward, or tedious, so be it. Just do it. And keep doing it, and the magic of The Compound Effect will reward you handsomely.
MOMENTUM
Routine Power
Some of our best intentions fail because we don’t have a system of execution. When it comes down to it, your new attitudes and behaviors must be incorporated into your monthly, weekly, and daily routines to affect any real, positive change.
A routine is something you do every day without fail, so that eventually, like brushing your teeth or putting on your seatbelt, you do it without conscious thought. These routines ease life’s stresses by making our actions automatic and effective. To reach new goals and develop new habits, it’s necessary to create new routines to support your objectives.
All the high-achievers and business owners I’ve worked with, I’ve seen that, along with good habits, each has developed routines for accomplishing necessary daily disciplines. It’s the only way any of us can predictably regulate our behavior. There simply isn’t any way around it. A daily routine built on good habits and disciplines separates the most successful among us from everyone else. A routine is exceptionally powerful.
MVPs – Most valuable Priorities – do three things that help you to get closer to your MVPs.
Your mind proceeds to match up on the outside what you want most on the inside— your goal.
Brian Tracy once said,
“Top people have very clear goals. They know who they are and they know what they want. They write it down and they make plans for its accomplishment. Unsuccessful people carry their goals around in their head.”
Shake It Up
Every so often I like to interrupt my routines. Otherwise, life gets stale and I plateau. Doing the same thing can be boring so once in a while change the routines a bit. That’s why it’s important to mix it up, challenge yourself in new ways, and freshen up your experience!
Set weekly, monthly, and yearly goals to do something that you wouldn’t normally do. It may not be earthshattering, but it can be such things as eating different kinds of foods, taking a class, visiting a new destination.
Family Time
Friday Night –dinner out
Saturday (FD) – Family Day- no job
Sunday (RR) Relationship Review
Devoted for family and strengthening the relationships.
“On a scale of one to ten (ten being the best), how would you rate our relationship this week?” This gets the discussion of wins and losses flowing—oh, boy! Then we discuss the adjustments that need to be made through this follow-up question: “What would it take to make your experience a ten?” By the end of the discussion, both of us feel heard and validated, and we have made our observations and wishes clear moving into the next week. This is an incredible process. I highly recommend it… if you dare!
Consistency creates momentum, and inconsistency can kill that momentum that you have created.
Winning the race is all about pace. Be the tortoise. The person who, given enough time, will beat virtually anybody in any competition as a result of positive habits and behaviors applied consistently. That’ll put the mojo in your momentum. And keep it there!
INFLUENCES
Everyone is affected by three kinds of influences: input (what you feed your mind), associations (the people with whom you spend time), and environment (your surroundings).
Dissociations
I’m constantly weeding out of my life people who refuse to grow and live positively. Growing and changing your associations is a lifelong process.
Write out the half-dozen small, seemingly inconsequential steps you can take every day that can take your life in a completely new and positive direction.
Write down the small, seemingly inconsequential actions you can stop doing that might be compounding your results downward.
The Compound Effect is always working. You can choose to make it work for you, or you can ignore it and experience the negative effects of this powerful principle. Starting today, you can decide to make simple, positive changes and allow the Compound Effect to take you where you want to go.
Limited Associations
There are some people you can spend three hours with, but not three days. Others you can spend three minutes with, but not three hours. Always remember that the influence of associations is both powerful and subtle.
The person you’re walking with can determine whether you slow your pace or quicken it, literally and figuratively.
I can hang out with an old high-school friend for three hours, but he’s not a three-day guy. And, then there are some people I can hang around for a few days, but wouldn’t go on an extended vacation with.
Take a look at your relationships and make sure you’re not spending three hours with a three-minute person.
Expanded Associations
We’ve just talked about weeding out negative influencers.
While you’re doing that, you’ll also want to reach out. Identify people who have positive qualities in the areas of life where you want to improve—people with the financial and business success you desire, the parenting skills you want.
Environment: Changing Your View Changes Your Perspective
I can’t really say that I met anybody at Sam’s who changed my life. However, that environment had a powerful effect on me. Seeing those homes up on the cliffs fueled my ambition and expanded my dreams. I ended up working harder than I ever thought possible to make those dreams come true—and they did!
The dream in your heart may be bigger than the environment in which you find yourself. Sometimes you have to get out of that environment to see that dream fulfilled.
When I talk about your environment, I’m not just referring to where you live. I’m referring to whatever surrounds you.
Creating a positive environment to support your success means clearing out all the clutter in your life. Not just the physical clutter that makes it hard for you to work productively and efficiently (although that’s important too!), but also the psychic clutter of whatever around you isn’t working, whatever’s broken, whatever makes you cringe.
Each and every incomplete thing in your life exerts a draining force on you, sucking the energy of accomplishment and success out of you as surely as a vampire stealing your blood.
Every incomplete promise, commitment, and agreement saps your strength because it blocks your momentum and inhibits your ability to move forward.
Incomplete tasks keep calling you back to the past to take care of them. So think about what you can complete today.
Dear Complainers
Complainers need stop working on their presentation about how bad life is, always collecting data points to reinforce their beliefs. STOP.
You get in life what you tolerate. If you tolerate disrespect, you will be disrespected. When you tolerate people being late and making you wait, people will show up late for you, when you tolerate being underpaid and overworked, that will continue for you. If you tolerate your body being overweight, tired, and perpetually sick, it will be.
It’s amazing how life will organize around the standards you set for yourself.
Some people think they’re the victims of other people’s behavior, but in actuality, we have control over how people treat us. Protect your emotional, mental, and physical space so you can live with peace, rather than in the chaos and stress the world will hurl upon you.
ACCELERATION
Do the Unexpected
What’s popular is average, it’s what’s common. Common things deliver common results.
Computer-generated “best wishes” cards, I handwrite personal sentiments expressing how grateful I am for my relationship. Richard Branson built his career on doing the unexpected.
“The same thinking that has led you to where you are is not going to lead you to where you want to go.” —Albert Einstein
The Compound Effect can help you break through to new and greater levels of success—faster than you imagined possible. When you’ve prepared, practiced, studied, and consistently put in the required effort, sooner or later you’ll be presented with your own moment of truth. In that moment, you will define who you are and who you are becoming.
“There is a point in every race when a rider encounters his real opponent and understands that it’s himself,” Lance Armstrong.
When you feel like you want to quit.
“Instead of quitting, every time I hit one of those mental and emotional walls, I recognized that my competitors were facing the same challenges. I knew this was another moment that, if I kept going, I would be strides ahead of them. These were the defining moments of success and progress. It wasn’t difficult, painful, or challenging when I was just running with the herd, just keeping up, but not really getting ahead. It’s not getting to the wall that counts; it’s what you do after you hit it.” Lance Armstrong.
Lou Holtz, said it was what you did after you did your best that created victories. In one game his team was down 42-0 at halftime. During the halftime break, Lou showed his team a dramatic highlight reel of second efforts to block, tackle, and recover the ball. He then told the players that they were not on his team because they could give their all on every play; every player on every team does that. He said they were on his team because of their ability to make that critical extra effort on each play. It’s the extra effort after you have done your best that is the difference maker. His team went on to win the game in the second half.
That is how you win.
Many people lack staying power if you have it, you will beat your competitors.
Viewing yourself as your toughest competitor is one of the best ways to multiply your results.
Go above and beyond when you hit the wall. Another way to multiply your results is pushing past what other people expect of you—doing more than “enough.”
Do better than expected.
Giving a little more time, energy, or thought to your efforts won’t just improve your results; it will multiply them. It takes very little extra to be EXTRAordinary. In all areas of your life, look for the multiplier opportunities where you can go a little further, push yourself a little harder, last a little longer, prepare a little better, and deliver a little bit more.
Identify three areas in your life where you can beat the expectations and Identify three ways you can do the unexpected.
Hardy, Darren. The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success. Vanguard Press, 2012. 176 pages.