Intro
Revisiting the books you had finished earlier helps to refresh your learning and you could also infer new points from the book, which you couldn’t get before, because of your then comprehension level. So I have planned to revisit the books I had read and for better digesting my learning, I have decided to share the learning with you so that it benefits you and myself.
Darren Hardy’s Linkedin page describes himself as a “Success Mentor to CEOs and High-Achievers, New York Times Bestselling Author and Former Publisher/Editor of SUCCESS Magazine”. In this book, Darren shares how to make your life better, what steps you need to follow to form good habits, how you can save more and how to make your relationship better etc. And the book is filled with several incidents from his life as examples. Enough about the book, let’s delve into the summary,
Compound effect
Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE
The author explains the compounding effect with this example “What’s simple to do is also simple not to do. The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect. So, beware of neglecting the simple things that make the big things in your life possible”. Do you want to get big fat positive results in life? then incorporate some good habits (however small) in life starting today. The benefits of these habits will get compounded eventually and give the results you wanted.
Sadly, bad habits get compounded too, Darren explains this with a plane travelling from Los Angeles to New York “If the nose of the plane is pointed only 1 per cent off course—almost an invisible adjustment when the plane’s sitting on the tarmac in Los Angeles—it will ultimately end up about 150 miles off course”. Similarly, a single poor habit, which doesn’t look like much at the moment, can ultimately lead you miles off course from the direction of your goals.
Since the compounding of a bad habit is very bad, the ideal thing would be to kick out all the bad habits from your life. But it is nearly impossible to live without any bad habits (even some may find life without bad habits, a bit boring). So to cancel the compounding of a bad habit which you couldn’t remove from your life, nullify its effect with some good habit. For example, instead of trying to stop eating junk foods for the rest of life to prevent obesity and heart problem, I would suggest to cancel its effect with exercise.
Take 100% responsibility
“You alone are responsible for what you do, don’t do, or how you respond to what’s done to you”
When u take 100% responsibility for everything, life becomes simple. Nothing can affect your tranquillity. “If you’ve ever blamed traffic for being late, or decided you are in a bad mood because of something your kid, spouse, or co-worker did, you’re not taking 100 per cent personal responsibility. You arrived late because the printer was busy? Maybe you shouldn’t have waited until the last minute? Co-worker messed up the presentation? Shouldn’t you have double-checked it yourself before delivering it?”.
It’s easy to point fingers at others, isn’t it?
At a glance, it can look like other’s mistake, but it’s you who failed to see that coming, so just take up responsibility and don’t let it repeat.
Track!
If you want to get better at something then start tracking it. Want some extra free time? Note down and analyse how you spend your time each day, there would be some activity which would be sucking up ur time but gives out no benefit, find it and remove it out of the equation. These time-killing activities would have been in your plain sight all along yet still hidden from you somehow, tracking helps you find such things. The same goes for money. In the book, the author states an example of how he made his assistant write all her spending, to find a way to increase her savings. Turned out she was spending more money on Starbucks coffee, instead, buying Starbucks coffee beans and making own coffee was more economical. And similarly her spending on outside food, cable was replaced with economical alternatives. Thanks to tracking and analysing, her saving got increased without a substantial lifestyle change. This is why the author says tracking is his go-to transformation model for everything that ails him.
Tracking also helps in measuring your performance. It helps you to find out whether you are doing something right or not. You can track your habits, exercise, sleep time, food or anything in life. Depending on whats ur requirement, start tracking, review the data and find a solution.
Routine
The author suggests having a routine to follow before and after the bed makes his life easier and better.
Every morning he gets up at 5 am,
- Thinks about all the things he is grateful for
- Next, he sends love to anyone person (could be friend, relative or someone he met in a supermarket) in his life by imagining all he wish and hope for them.
- Then he decides on three things which he would do in the day to bring him closer to his goal, followed by coffee and stretching.
- After which he sits on his recliner and go through positive instructional content for 30mins.
- Next, he takes 15mins to glance through his top three, one-year and five-year goals, quarterly objectives, top goals for week, month. Then decides on the top three “Most Valuable priorities” (MVP) which he should do that day that would take him closer to these goals. Only then, he checks his mail and starts working on his MVPs.
Before going to bed,
- Darren reviews his day, he compares his plan for the day with how well he executed them, whether something needs to be carry forwarded to the next day’s plan or not.
- Then he notes down his learning, insight of the day in his journal
- At last, he finishes his day by reading 10 pages of inspirational content
This routine may look like a lot, but the key is to start small then scale large, so you can try following one or two activity, then try to add further to the routine as you grow. The author says “ All hell can break loose throughout the day, but because I control the bookends, I know I am always going to start and finish strong”. Also, Darren says he keeps his life interesting by following a routine of indulging in some adventurous activity once every month.
Take action 👊🏻
Knowledge without action leads to Self delusion
Indulging only in learning but not taking action is one of the most common mistakes by people trying to improve themselves. Reading tons of books (without any action) gives you a fake sense of growth due to all the dopamine you got with reading, but eventually, you realize ur life has been the same, with no improvement. You already know what u want in life and how to achieve it, So stop reading and start working towards your goal.
Reading makes you better, but reading alone is not sufficient to achieve your goals.
When you start taking actions, setting the proper target date for it is a must (learn about Parkinson’s law before fixing any date). Set clear, measurable goals, not generic ones. Don’t set your goal as “I want to be rich”, instead set it as “I should have saved ___ amount by xx/yy/zzzz”. This is a clear goal which has defined target date and easily measurable. A goal without a deadline is never going to be achieved, so don’t even think to work on a goal without a deadline.
Let me give example on how having a deadline is important, Blogging is my leisure activity, so I don’t force a deadline on myself (which reflects on my rate of publishing). During the preparation of this article I faced many reasons to drop writing this article like I got busy in my job, my health was not good for some time. Also, I had set a concrete timeline (Oct 10) to finish this article, and this acted as my push, I didn’t want to break my goal and this forced me to stick to the goal. So I can tell you one thing, if I hadn’t set my deadline, I would have just dropped this article and would have said to myself that I can write this some other time.
The author goes one step further and suggests to share the target date with the public (via social media or any other medium) when you commit something in front of everyone, the chances of you backing out from the commitment becomes very less.
Drops of Wisdom from the book:
- Once-dominant empires have failed for this very reason. People get to a certain level of success and get too comfortable.
- All of the hows will be meaningless until your whys are powerful enough. Until you’ve set your desire and motivation in place, you’ll abandon any new path you seek to better your life.
- You say your family is your top priority, but if they don’t appear on your busy calendar, they aren’t, really.
- About every three months, I pick one vice and abstain for thirty days (this probably stems from my Catholic Lent upbringing). I love proving to myself that I’m still in charge. Try this yourself. Pick a vice—something you do in moderation, but you know doesn’t contribute to your highest good—and take yourself on a thirty-day wagon run.
- 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.”
- My current “accountability partner” is my good friend Landon Taylor. As I mentioned before, we have a thirty-minute call every Friday to discuss our weekly wins, losses, fixes, “ah-has,” and where we are on our growth plans. The anticipation of the call and knowing I have to be accountable to Landon keeps me extra committed throughout the week.
- Find the line of expectation and then exceed it.
Outro
The Compound Effect is a great read and a small book (very much recommended for first time readers). If you want to follow Darren Hardy’s principles further then you can try out his daily newsletter - DarrenDaily. (Fair warning, sometimes he uses this newsletter to promote his products and talk like a flimsy salesman)
Disclaimer: Book summaries are limited by the comprehension level of the summariser and almost always never do justice to the book. So go read the book for a complete experience