The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success (2010) by Darren Hardy describes how small improvements in a person’s habits generate large results down the line. The book explains how to take responsibility for results, make good habits that last, gain momentum with daily effort, avoid bad influences, and accelerate progress by going beyond the expected. The book has sold over one million copies.

Hardy founded Success magazine; he has written four books on goal attainment, teaches success strategies online and in person, and mentors business leaders. His DarrenDaily podcast is listened to by 350,000 people.

Each chapter of The Compound Effect concludes with a set of action steps that summarize the chapter’s main points. The book includes brief introductory and concluding chapters, plus information on further resources.

The e-book version of the updated 2020 edition forms the basis for this study guide.

Summary

Hardy learned the value of hard work from his father, a tough disciplinarian who handed out chores and expected good results at school. By his mid-20s, Hardy owned a company that generated $50 million in revenue. Searching for ways to supercharge behavior, he discovered the principles presented in The Compound Effect.

Hardy’s principle of the Compound Effect (See: Index of Terms) arises from doing simple, positive things consistently until success begins rapidly to build on itself. Forgoing a single 125-calorie treat each day for 31 months will make a person slimmer by 33 pounds. Adding the same amount of calories over the same time will have the opposite effect, which, in turn, can cause negative ripples for the rest of a person’s life. Either way, the results compound slowly at first but soon balloon into a strongly positive—or negative—result.

This principle works on any behavior, good or bad. Overspending can bankrupt a person, but cutting back on unimportant purchases will, over time, add up to huge savings. Slight changes in several areas can turn a life around: Removing one soda per day from a diet, shaving off a few minor purchases per month, and beginning an exercise program with a one-mile walk can add up to a new person after a year.

Improvements in one area often cause ripple effects that spread into other areas. Weight loss, for example, increases energy and improves attitude, which shows results in improved health, better performance at work, and closer relationships at home.

When people accept full responsibility for the outcomes in their life and stop blaming circumstances or others for their problems, they make rapid progress toward success. One way to improve awareness of the unconscious negative choices we make is to keep a journal that tracks spending habits, calorie intake, or any other behavior that’s not working properly. The insights from this type of journaling lead to improved habits.

To change habits, the book advises, first identify the habits that support you, note those that impede you, and develop a set of new habits that will advance you toward your main goal. Then determine what most inspires you in life, and use that as “why-power” to energize your motivation to change. Finally, begin slowly and deliberately to alter habits by writing down your goals, removing things that trigger bad habits, replacing old behaviors with similar-but-good ones—carrots and celery, for example, in place of potato chips—and using the law of attraction to manifest good habits by visualizing them.

It can be hard to get a habit going, Hardy argues, but once it’s up and running, it takes advantage of momentum and will continue indefinitely, as long as we add a small amount of maintenance energy to it each day. One way to keep momentum up is to establish routines around new habits. This embeds the habits within standardized, automatic behaviors, and the habits become automatic, too.

Things outside of us can influence our attitudes, including the media, our acquaintances, and our environment. Media tends to grab our attention with alarming reports that negatively affect our attitude; it’s best to limit media exposure to information that’s personally useful, educational, and inspirational. Friends and companions, meanwhile, tend to pull our behavior toward theirs, so choosing the people who best reflect our own goals, and restricting our interactions with those who don’t share those values, can greatly improve our level of success. If we tolerate clutter or anything else in our environment that interferes with our goals, we end up stuck at that level.

Into every life come “moments of truth” that challenge us to do our best. By meeting and exceeding those challenges, a person can accelerate growth. Going the extra distance for customers, friends, and family will not simply add to a person’s attainments: It will multiply them.

Hardy concludes by suggesting that that best way to achieve success is to help others achieve it for themselves.