Ghazala Anbreen
The book under review ‘’The Compound Effect’’ and its writer is Darren Hardy. This book is about how making right choices can change our life. How small efforts bring big changes. It makes us learn the principle of getting success in life. It teaches us to build a momentum and establish a discipline in life. It makes us learn to go steadily and gradually. It teaches us to make and shape the future for ourselves and the fact that if we see some success story then there is a complete story at its back.
It is about developing positive habits and the consistency. Every decision we take in our life shapes our life. Step by step it takes us towards success. Success is the compound effect of our work out.
It is the principle which unfolds how small steps lead to massive results. Whether it is in finance or relationships. The results are very subtle. The writer tells us to make our own decisions. How things make big difference by getting compounded every passing day is the basic subject of this book.
This book is divided in six different parts and the writer Darren Hardy used simple methods in it. Every part is connected with each other. Compound effect is basically a process in which we are able to get good results by small measures. It teaches us if we take small steps daily they eventually lead to big results and create big differences. Making understand compound effect will help us alleviate unrealistic expectations about life. It talks about the fact that our life is the result of our choices. Small decisions help us make successful in life. Darren Hardy enables us to opt for good choices in life as they shape our behaviors. He says we all are lucky. And if we have food and shelter then we indeed are very lucky. Privilege, attitude, consistency and right action design our luck. Looking at the situation and circumstances with a positive attitude is very important. First of all, we must be aware and know about the choices which make us go away from our destination.
Habits
The habits as they get old they are difficult to change. Aristotle said we are what we do. Darren Hardy suggests how we may change old habits. For this first identify the triggers. Become cognizant of which stimuli drive us to do some bad act. He asks to take out our notebook and write all those triggers.
Swapping is seeing how we may change our habits. Chips by carrots example is given by him to make understand this concept. In it he illustrates how a young lady was in habit of swallowing big packets of chips while watching television. Then she replaced chips by carrots and it was just a fine healthy choice.
Easing means to remove the bad habits step by step.
Step in When we want to leave the habit we feel difficulty early but then we become habitual.
Momentum It is not easy to build momentum but once it is made then life becomes easy.
Influence
The people we spend time are called our reference group. This determines our success. We must stay away from negative minded people to avoid failures in life as their shadow will crawl on us.
Dissociation
Make hard choice to stay away from negative people
Limited association
The writer says it is time to be clear who are the people with whom we may spend three minutes but not three hours.
Expanded association
Find the people who have positive qualities.
Mentors
The writer says to identify our mentors as we learn from them.
Acceleration
Here Darren gives example when he used to ride bicycle and then one day he stopped on getting tired. But then he started in a new way. In like manner some moments are defining moments in our life.
The writer asks to make a healthy behaviour a consistent part of our routine. He also urges us to make a list of bad habits. He advises to exclude those people who belittle us and degrade us. He preaches to include those people who add value to our life. He motivates us to establish the natural consistent rhythm and tells us when we make the list of selected negative people then slowly try to make them kick off from our life. And not to interact with those people who are not aligned with our vision. Instead align with the people who uplift and elevate us.
Darren Hardy is preaching disgust for hastiness. He is preaching perseverance. The writer describes about the knowledge. He corroborates how the knowledge also has the compound effect. It is there in every field of life. It canvasses every spectrum of life. The writer talks about every aspect surrounding human life. Even he talks about the relationships. He is of the view that if people want to improve their relations and wish to rectify them then the instant result is hard to achieve most often. It takes some time to nurture and foster such relations. The relations do not improve in one day, it takes consistent effort to improvise them.
This book is about improvement of life in every aspect. It concerns every sphere. Darren Hardy says things do not occur instantly. The bigger success stories conceal a long story of persistence at the back.
Another point to ponder is whatever we are doing, it leads to some results and these are cogent and plausible results. Still another theory which the writer propounds is that we all are lucky as we all have opportunity to become lucky. He asks us not to ignore the progress gained by the small steps.
A dedicated chapter is about choices. Our choices can be our best friends or our worst enemies. Choices enable us to materialize our goals in concrete realities. Choices slowly and gradually become our habits. Slowly we will choose to choose correctly. We make your choices and then they define us. We are taught throughout in our life which choices we have to opt for. Preparation plus attitude plus action plus opportunity is the key given by the writer.
In short, this book comes at an interesting time It tells us to make small and smart choices and remain consistent .That way we will get good results for sure. It is about the successful life. It is about the compounding of power. Compounding slowly over time creates a huge and productive effect. Normally human beings quit when the results are not as per avowed inclinations. It is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices. The compound effect is a process which may be like domino effect or a snowball process. It is a process in which we may earn more return on our income. As a result, finally, it assumes the proportion of a mega effect. It teaches us how steady progress on everyday basis is better. On the basis of all the aforementioned grounds, it is a must read for all and is strongly recommended.
