"The Compound Effect" by Darren Hard BOOK SUMMARY

Hello Readers!

This Article is book summary of the book "The Compound Effect" by Darren Hard. In this Article, we are going to about how you are not able to success you want because of turning the compound effect against you. We are going to learn how the compound effect makes our success achieved through hard work; consistency and discipline look like an overnight success. But all overnight successes are rigorous hard work on which the magic of the compound effect has been applied.

Three factors with which you can profit from the Compound Effect are:

1. Choices

2. Habits

3. Influences.

We need to start tracking our choices to take control of our lives. Also, we need to change our bad habits to good habits using why-power. We have heard about will power but why-power is more important than the will power. We are influenced by 3 factors namely, Input (whatever we feed into our mind), Association (the people we spend time with) and Environment (our surroundings).

Very often we think today is the day from today onwards I will work out every day, I will learn a new skill, I will work more. But when it’s time to do that, we say to our self, “Today I am very tired, I’ll definitely start from next week” But after one week the same story continues. This happens because we think that we can change ourselves with just a snap of finger. But most probably this will not happen.

Change happens slowly when we consistently take small steps then we get our desired result. Earn 2 Million working just 2 hours from your home, Lose 20 kg in a week, get 20 years younger with this cream. Because of such advertisements we have forgotten what it truly takes to achieve success. The truth is success still requires the good old hard work, consistency and discipline. Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices. 

Suppose you get to choose between two options.

First, you get 3 Million. Second, you get a Dollar whose value doubles every day for the next 31 days. If you have heard this question before you know you should select option 2 but still, we don't do that because the reward we get takes a lot of time and so we ignore it. Suppose you get 3 Million and your friend chooses the second option that is he gets 1 Dollar on day 1. By day 5, you will have 3 Million and your friend will have 16 Dollars. Only 16 Dollar, not 16 Dollar. By day 20, you will still have 3 Million and your friend will have 52 thousand. Just think about what your friend might be feeling. He must be thinking that he waited for 20 days still he received only 52 thousand, instead, he should have also selected option 1. By day 29, your friend will have 2.7 Million and you will have 3 Million. Day 30 is when the magic of Compound Effect will take place and your friend will get ahead of you. And by the last day, day 31 your friend will have 10 Million+ and you will still have 3 Million.

Now think what you might be feeling. Till the end, you will doubt yourself and think that your small actions are not having any impact but when the compound effect will take place you will achieve the success that you might have not imagined. When you start understanding compound effect you will stop chasing overnight success. Now we will look at three factors using which you can profit from the compound effect.

First Choices. Has this ever happened to you? Your life was going great and everything was going well and suddenly you take a stupid decision and all your hard work gets wasted. This happens because we make most of our choices unconsciously. The small things which we think will not have any effect are the ones that turn into problems. To change this you can start “Tracking”. Suppose you have a habit of always eating something. Even if you try you aren’t able to control yourself and whatever comes in front of your eyes you just eat it. So you can start keeping a notebook in your pocket in which you write whatever you eat apart from your 2-3 main meals. Even if you eat small chocolate, you write it in the notebook. This way you will be able to track whatever you were eating unconsciously before. And next time if something comes in front of you, you will not eat it because you will have to write it in your notebook.

Second Habits. Suppose after just taking a bite of burger you fall down on the ground because of a heart attack. Will you eat the next bite? If after just smoking a cigarette you turn into an 80-year-old man. Will you smoke another cigarette? The problem is there are no instant drawbacks to our bad habits. Doing them gives us instant gratification, momentary happiness. This is why we are not able to look at the long term losses our bad habits will cause. We have to change our bad habits into good ones. And to do this we will have to use our “why power”, you might have heard of will power. But why power is more important than will power. Why power is the reason you want to change your habit. Suppose a keep a wooden plank on the ground and ask you to walk on it in exchange of 2000 Dollars. You will not think much and just do it. But suppose I keep the same wooden plank from a 15-floor building to another 15-floor building and ask you to do it. You will straight away say no, because for 2000 Dollars you will not risk your life. Now suppose the other building is on fire and your parents are stuck in that building. You will immediately rush to the other building whether I give you 2000 Dollars or not. This will happen because in this case your why power is very strong. You want to save your parents! So this way you need a strong why to change your habits.

Third, Influences. There are 3 factors that affect us. 

First, the information we feed our mind in the form of news, videos, photos, books, etc. Second, the people we spend time with. 

And third, the surrounding we live in. 

Our mind is like an empty glass. It holds whatever you feed it. If we feed news, hatred negativity then our mind will also get filled with dirty water. And we will only see negative things everywhere. But if we feed our mind with positive things then our glass will remain clean. if we feed positive, inspirational and supportive ideas to our mind then the dirty water will automatically flow out and get replaced by clean water. Always remember that compound effect is always working either in your favor or against you. 

These were some of the important points from “The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy”. The Compound Effect book also has more points on how to apply the compound effect with some interesting examples.