The Compound Effect

Product Information

Your influence determines the majority of your success, so be careful who you allow to influence your life. When you lose two weeks of work, you don’t just lose the work you would have done. You also lose momentum and that is the bigger problem. Choice is at the center of all success and failure. It is what we choose that makes the biggest difference. Too often we sleepwalk through our choices. We default to choices that our society and culture tells us we should do. It is also important to take things slowly. Work everyday and without burning out, you will have the compound effect giving you the biggest momentum in a few years time. You need a deep why for doing stuff. With a why that is meaningful enough, you will do almost anything. (Think of Kristy exercising for the wedding.)

Garbage in, garbage out. Don’t waste your time watching TV, eating junk, reading useless stuff, consuming negative stories, and more.Hardy recommends using a Seinfeld calendar for public accountability too. Hangout in the office, etc. so other people can see it.

You have to be willing to give 100 percent in your relationships. Always take 100 percent responsibility for everything that happens to you. Most importantly the Author has some very practical suggestions to implement good habits and get rid of bad ones. So if you want to lose weight, what many people do, is to buy an expensive gym membership, new gym clothes and shoes to exercise. They work out intensively for an hour a day for 7 days. Then they give up disappointed with the results. Instead the Author suggests that it is better to walk 10 minutes a day and slowly increase it till it becomes a habit like brushing your teeth. In this way you will have long lasting impact for your health. This is a list of authors, books, and concepts mentioned in The Compound Effect, which might be useful for future reading. If I were only concerned with success and not at all concerned about being a decent human, I could probably agree with a lot of this book.

Usually a one star means this is complete bullshit, but I'll give this one a genuine one star for the points mentioned above. Still, I have read way better books. Read Tony Robbins and Steven Covey for topics similar to this one (superior), and read everything from Tim Ferriss for a very concrete angle on how to make innovative changes to your life. Very few people, in my opinion, are better than Tim Ferriss on self improvement.

The difference between the number one golfer and number ten golfer is just 1.9 strokes. The difference prize money is huge. When you set a goal, most people ask, “What do I need to do to achieve your goal?” Instead, you should ask “Who do I need to become?”Ending the book with "if this helped you in any way whatsoever, give five copies to your friends", was just a bit too much. The best thing about the book is that it teaches you to work hard. There is no such thing as an overnight success. You have to work hard considerably everyday to make the compound effect work in favour of you. If you create goals for yourself that have friction with your values, you’re going to self-sabotage or feel guilty about your progress. For example, if your family is a high priority, but you set high financial goals for yourself then there is friction between those two goals. (Note: this is basically identity-based habits. You can’t have friction between your identity and your goals.) The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions. You cannot improve something until you measure it. Always take 100 percent responsibility for everything that happens to you. The Compound Effect summary Stop watching the news. The news just aggregates the worst, saddest, and most stressful stories every day.