A synopsis of the book “The Compound Effect” by Darren Hardy

This book is a must for financial advisors. Darren Hardy is a renowned sales and marketing coach. He works with entrepreneurs, leaders and CEOs. In this book, he focuses on practical steps you must take to have insane growth in your business. Darren provides concrete examples of ways to implement the right behaviors to compound your results.

One of my favorite takeaways is his compulsive behavior of tracking everything. He explains that you can’t modify or change a behavior unless you understand the true impact on your performance. I implemented this philosophy and I tracked everything I did from the moment I woke up to the moment my head hit the pillow. I found so many inefficiencies in the way I was managing my time. I even took it to the personal level of tracking my calories and my exercise habits and I lost weight with my behavioral changes.

Another thing I implemented immediately was his E vs E equation – your Entertainment versus Education ratio. Everyone has the same number of hours in a day, including the most powerful and successful leaders. However, they seem to accomplish exponentially more with the same number of hours. It is all due to how they choose to spend their time. Darren suggests you track for one week every minute you spend on entertainment which includes news, television, Facebook, cat videos, etc. You get the point. Then he asks you to log how much time you spent on personal development. It could be an online course, a business book you are reading, a license you are obtaining, etc.

What is your ratio? The bottom 80% of society spends most of their time on entertainment; the top 20% spent it on education. This shift is one of the simplest but it is not easy as it requires a change in habits. You will be amazed at how much time you are wasting on garbage in which equates to garbage out. Your habits and behaviors never lie. If you say you want to lose weight but you have orange Cheetos stains on your fingers, then your habits are not aligned to your goal. There is a lot in this book but I suggest reading it and working through the exercises to truly see the impact.

- Bellaria Jimenez