The Compound Effect

Darren Hardy

📚 GENRE: Personal Development

📃 PAGES: 176

✅ COMPLETED: September 22, 2020

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Small daily habits compound over time and lead to big results. In the Compound Effect, Darren Hardy explains the long-term benefits of creating a set of good, productive habits and staying disciplined to them.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Small Habits Compound — To make progress in any area, you need to develop a set of productive daily habits and be disciplined to them. Becoming better at anything takes a lot of time and repetition. There’s no way around it — you just have to put in the time every day. Your good habits compound over time and lead to big results.

2️⃣ Watch Your Inputs — What you feed your mind is an important factor in your mood, energy, and direction in life. Always make sure you are absorbing educational, positive content. When you listen to music, make sure it’s upbeat. Always look for opportunities to learn. 

3️⃣ Do A Little Extra — Try to always exceed expectations, even with the small things. When you go above and beyond, it makes an impression. Pay attention to the small details and take those one or two extra steps to show you care about your work. And always be thoughtful with people you care about.

Favorite Quote

"The secret to success was then, and is now, hard work, discipline, and good habits."

Book Notes 📑

Introduction

  • You can’t buy success in any area. Success takes a lot of effort and discipline over a long period of time. There are no shortcuts.
  • Quote: “The secret to success was then, and is now, hard work, discipline, and good habits.”
  • Success is doing a small group of things really well, day after day.
    • It’s not easy. It’s not exciting. It’s a grind.
    • It takes discipline.

Chapter 1

  • Consistency and discipline are the biggest keys to success. It requires a lot of patience. Huge change doesn’t happen overnight.
    • Formula — Small, smart choices + consistency and discipline + time = radical difference.
  • Success takes three things:
      1. Hard Work
      2. Discipline
      3. Good Habits
    • Think about your grandparents and great grandparents. They worked sunup to sundown every day. They didn’t have entertainment and social media to distract them. 
  • Never get complacent. If you start to have some success, don’t get content. Keep pushing.
  • Personal development and progress requires hard work and effort. Lots of it.
    • There are no quick fixes and there are no shortcuts to success. 
  • Daily discipline is essential. Good daily habits are usually not fun. They are not very exciting. It’s a grind. You have to enjoy the grind.

Chapter 2

  • Life comes down to choices and you are responsible for for all of your choices.
    • Choices include tiny, small decisions, not just huge, life-changing ones. You are responsible for choosing your daily habits, good and bad. 
  • Your attitude is also a choice. To be grateful is a choice.
  • Show your appreciation of others. Let them know in various ways that you care and are grateful for them.
  • You are 100% responsible for your life and the choices you make. Never blame other things or people. Take accountability.
    • You are responsible for everything you do, don’t do, and for your responses to what happens to you.
      • Don’t act like the victim. Don’t point fingers.
  • Prepare — Read books, increase your knowledge, develop your skills.
    • Constantly spend time learning. Commit yourself to personal development. 
    • Every day try to get a little bit better.
    • Take a good look at yourself and identify areas to get better at.

Chapter 3

  • “You are what you repeatedly do.” — Aristotle
  • We are run by our habits. Habits, good and bad, become automatic over time. Your habits become our auto pilot behavior.
    • Every aspect of our lives as a result of our habits. Thoughts, actions, tendencies.
    • Every deficiency you have can be overcome with discipline and good habits. Developing good habits takes patience and discipline. 
  • Know your “why.” When you have a higher purpose, it gives you the energy and discipline to carry out the good habits that are needed to accomplish your goals.
  • Develop core values that you stand by. These define who you are and what you stand for.
    • These values act as your navigation system through life.
    • These values are what you would fight endlessly for and stand for.
    • These values make up your character. They are what you hope others would say about you.
  • When you have core values, making decisions is easier. You know what to do and how to handle things. There’s really no hesitation because you’re always aligning with your core values.
    • These values guide you in good times and bad.
    • These values also dictate how you see the world and people around you, and how you think.
  • Set goals and write them down. Make them clear and have goals for every area of your life.
  • When going after goals, the first question you have to ask is, “who do I have to become?”
    • Not “what do I need to do?” That comes after the first question.
    • In other words, you attract what you want by becoming the person you need to be.
      • Pursuing what you want won’t work. Focus on becoming the person you need to become to attract what you want. This is done by working on your skills and knowledge and becoming all you can possibly be.
  • A lot of individuals are too focused on entertainment instead of education. Top performers are focused on education instead of entertainment. They are focused on getting better all the time. They are focused on improvement every day.
    • Ex. Kobe
    • Ex. Michael Jordan
  • Maximize your time. Find ways to replace unproductive activities with productive activities.
  • Change takes daily discipline. No matter how hard, awkward, challenging, tedious things are, keep pushing forward and doing them. This is where you earn your improvement and change.
    • And… Be patient! Change takes time. 
  • Be happy when you are faced with a challenge. It gives you a chance to stand out and show what you can do. 

Chapter 4

  • Try to develop a set of predictable daily disciplines. These become your daily routine.
    • Ex. Reading, Spanish, Gym
    • Your routine is what leads to improvement. Try to have a world class routine that maximizes time. 
    • Be consistent with your disciplines and routine. Consistently is so important.

Chapter 5

  • Input — What you feed your mind. Input is really important. You need to feed your mind good, high-quality stuff every day. 
  • Turn your car into “Mobile University.”
    • This is part of maximizing your time. If you can play a podcast or listen to Spanish or do something else productive while you drive, you can really get a lot of extra work in every day.

Chapter 6

  • Always go above and beyond expectations, even on the small things.
    • Be thoughtful.
    • When you go above and beyond, it’s impressive. It makes you stand out from the crowd. It makes an impression.
    • Do the unexpected.
  • When you go above and beyond and do things that aren’t expected of you, you make people’s day.
    • Always be thinking of ways to go above and beyond and do things that weren’t asked of you. 
      • Again, this is called being thoughtful.
  • Do what you’re asked to do, then step it up and do more. It makes a big impact.
  • Do better than expected. It becomes part of your reputation. You become down for excellence.
    • Ex. Emails — Lay or your email really well and provide links. Try to make things easy on the recipient. 
  • It doesn’t take a whole lot more effort to go above and beyond what is asked of you. Pay attention to detail and take those one or two extra steps because they really do make a nice impression.
  • Look to “wow” people by going above and beyond and doing the unexpected.