Corentin Derbré
Books:
The Compound Effect – Darren Hardy
ISBN: 159315724X
Date read: 2016-06-05
How strongly I recommend it: 6/10
(See my list of books, for more.)
Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.
Presented as a simple guide to success. While I liked reading the book and learning more about applying compound interest to many areas, I didn't learn anything.
my notes
The Compound Effect – Darren Hardy
ISBN: 159315724X
Date read: 2016-06-05
How strongly I recommend it: 6/10
(See my list of books, for more.)
Go to the Amazon page for details and reviews.
Presented as a simple guide to success. While I liked reading the book and learning more about applying compound interest to many areas, I didn't learn anything.
my notes
If you want more love, give more love. If you want greater success, help others achieve more.
Clear the clutter and bring focus to the core fundamentals that matter.
New or more information is not what you need—a new plan of action is.
The Compound Effect in Action
Miss free throws at the game? Do one thousand free throws every day for a month.
If you aren’t good at something, work harder, work smarter.
“Be the guy who says ‘no.’ It’s no great achievement to go along with the crowd. Be the unusual guy, the extraordinary guy.”
The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices.
Small, Smart Choices + Consistency + Time = RADICAL DIFFERENCE
The Compound Effect is predictable and measurable
We’ve been conditioned by society to believe in the effectiveness of a great display of massive effort.
People get to a certain level of success and get too comfortable. Having experienced extended periods of prosperity, health, and wealth, we become complacent. We stop doing what we did to get us there. Real and lasting success requires work—and lots of it!
He faced the sheer agony and frustration of the failure, loneliness, hard work, and disappointment it took to become No. 1.
Decide to make up in hard work and personal development to outcompete anyone— including your old self.
Choices
To indulge in gossip or stay silent, to make one more prospecting call or call it a day, to say I love you or not.
And we’re particularly gifted in the finger-pointing department when it comes to our romantic relationships—you know, where the other person is the one who needs to change.
All that journaling forced me to focus on my wife’s positive aspects. I was consciously looking for all the things she was doing “right.”
No matter who was elected president, how badly the economy tanked, or what anybody said, did, or didn’t do, I was still 100 percent in control of me.
But the truth was I was guilty of being lazy by not watching the finances more diligently.
The first step toward change is awareness.
The process forces you to be conscious of your decisions.
Over the years I’ve tracked what I eat and drink, how much I exercise, how much time I spend improving a skill.
To get results, you have to take some action.
Losing is a habit. So is winning.
Habits
Aristotle wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do.”
A daily routine built on good habits is the difference that separates the most successful amongst us from everyone else.
It’s about becoming a creature of champion habits.
If you failed to make that tenth call today and were immediately fired and bankrupted, suddenly picking up the phone would be a no-brainer.
When I was single and ready to find my mate and get married, I made a long list of traits I desired in the perfect woman (for me). I filled more than forty pages of a journal, front and back, describing her in great detail—her personality, character, key attributes, attitudes, and philosophies about life, even what kind of family she’d come from, including her culture and physical makeup, down to the texture of her hair. I wrote in depth what our life would be like and what we’d do together. If I had then asked, “What do I have to do to find and get this girl?” I might still be on that butterfly chase. Instead, I looked back at the list and considered whether or not I embodied those same attributes myself. Did I have the very qualities I was expecting in her? I asked myself, “What kind of a man would a woman like this be looking for? Who do I need to become to be attractive to a woman of this substance?”
Every so often I go on a “vice fast.” I pick one vice, and check to be sure I’m still the alpha dog in our relationship.
Personally, I’m always happy when something is hard. Why? Because I know that most people won’t do what it takes; therefore, it will be easier for me to step in front of the pack and take the lead.
Momentum
You’ll need a lot of energy to break your inertia and get your new enterprise under way. But once you get momentum, you will be hard to stop—virtually unbeatable—even though you’re now putting out considerably less effort while receiving greater results.
Staying consistent over a long enough period of time.
Gratitude for that which you already have.
If something that used to energize you has become same-old/same-old, or is no longer generating powerful results, switch it up.
You have to build a program that you can do for fifty years, not five weeks, or five months.
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).
If you want your brain to perform at its peak, you’ve got to be even more vigilant about what you feed it.
Take a look at your relationships and make sure you’re not spending three hours with a three-minute person.
We’ve just talked about weeding out negative influencers. While you’re doing that, you’ll also want to reach out.
“Who has the type of relationship I want? How can I spend (more) time with that person? Who can I meet who can positively influence me?”
Teaming up with a peak performance partner.
“How do I show up to you? What do you think my strengths are? In what areas do you think I can improve? Where do you think I sabotage myself? What’s one thing I can stop doing that would benefit me the most? What’s the one thing I should start doing?”
“Never ask advice of someone with whom you wouldn’t want to trade places.”
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. It’s like planting an oak sapling in a pot. Once it becomes rootbound, its growth is limited. It needs a great space to become a mighty oak. So do you.
Acceleration
“When you open a gap and your competitors don’t respond, it tells you something. They’re hurting. And when they’re hurting, that is when you take them.”
It’s not getting to the wall that counts; it’s what you do after you hit it.
When you hit the wall in your disciplines, routines, rhythms, and consistency, realize that’s when you are separating yourself from your old self, scaling that wall, and finding your new powerful, triumphant, and victorious self.
The real growth happens with what you do after you’re at the wall.
Where in life can you do more than expected when you hit the wall? Or where can you go for “WOW”? It doesn’t take a lot more effort, but the little extra multiplies your results many times over.
In our attention-deficit, propaganda-saturated society, sometimes doing the unexpected is required to get your voice heard. If you have a cause or ideal worthy of attention, do what it takes, even the unexpected, to make your case heard. Add a little audacity to your repertoire.